I’ll go first…

My favorite Fediverse platforms as of 2024

  1. Mastodon - my main social feed platform that first introduced me to the Fediverse in general.

  2. Lemmy - my second main social feed platform that originally substituted Reddit from years ago.

  3. Matrix protocol - communication platform I use to connect with users on the Lemmy instance I’m on

  4. Peertube - would love to get an account going and use it more often but still don’t know how but there’s FediVideo.

  5. Bookwyrm - Goodreads alternative that I signed up for that could use more work for a genuine reading tracker.

BONUS: my least favorite Fediverse platform lately

WordPress - because I used to run art blogs on there before I heard word about drama about the CEO of the corporation so I basically had to put out my last existing art blog…RIP.

  • Jupiter Rowland@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
    3·
    4 days ago

    Hubzilla. Closely followed by the intentionally nameless fork of a fork… of Hubzilla that’s colloquially being referred to as (streams).

    Perks of both (excerpt):

    • not based on ActivityPub, it’s actually optional; you can turn/keep it off if you want to
    • nomadic identity; my channels are resilient against instance shutdown because they aren’t restricted to one instance
    • multiple channels = IDs on one and the same account/login; no need to register additional user accounts for this, and you can easily switch back and forth between channels
    • OpenWebAuth magic single sign-on, both client-side and server-side support
    • very extensive permission settings that let me control what I see, what I don’t see and what others can see and do
    • per-contact permission settings
    • per-channel blacklist/whitelist filter plus per-contact blacklist/whitelist filters plus keyword-triggered, automatically generated, reader-side content warnings, supporting regex and (except the latter) a special filter syntax for extra features
    • what’s “lists” on Mastodon is actually useful because you can use it both to filter your stream and to limit whom you send a post to, not to mention much easier to maintain
    • a concept of conversations, you can follow entire discussions, and you generally receive all replies to a post (something that at least Mastodon doesn’t have, by the way)
    • not only native support for discussion groups/forums, but they can and do host their own moderated discussion groups/forums (Mastodon has neither)
    • no arbitrary character limits, characters only limited by the instance database (on (streams), that’s theoretically over 24,000,000 characters for one post)
    • probably more text formatting options than your typical blogging platform and definitely more than any microblogging project in the Fediverse
    • full-blown blog posts rendered gracefully
    • non-standard BBcode tags for special features, often observer-aware
    • embedded links; no need to plaster URLs into your posts in plain sight
    • images can be embedded “in-line” within the post with text above them and text below them
    • no limit on how many images a post can have
    • unlimited poll options
    • multiple-word hashtags
    • post categories in addition to hashtags
    • tag cloud plus category cloud/list
    • quotes
    • “quote-tweets”
    • extensively customisable Web UI
    • built-in file storage with a built-in file manager, per-file and per-directory permissions settings and WebDAV support that’s used for images and other media you embed in your posts (unlike on Mastodon and Lemmy, you know where your uploaded images land, and you can delete them yourself if you need to)
    • federated event calendar with support for Event-type objects
    • built-in CalDAV calendar server (headless on (streams))
    • built-in CardDAV address book server (headless)
    • support for OAuth and OAuth2
    • modular; can be extended with official or, if available, third-party “apps”, widgets and themes

    Extra perks of Hubzilla:

    • currently more reliable
    • more active development
    • easier to get new users on board because hubs are listed on various Fediverse sites, and more public hubs are available
    • newer and more configurable version of the Redbasic theme
    • switchable night mode
    • multiple profiles per channel which can be assigned to certain connections
    • you can configure new connections before you confirm them
    • can also connect to diaspora*
    • can also subscribe to RSS and Atom feeds
    • event calendar also doubles as a basic frontend for the CalDAV server
    • non-federating, long-form articles
    • “cards” that work largely the same
    • built-in wiki engine based on either BBcode or Markdown for as many wikis of your own as you want to, each with as many pages as you want
    • support for webpages (the official Hubzilla website is on a Hubzilla channel itself)

    Extra perks of (streams):

    • more advanced
    • better integration of ActivityPub into the two supported nomadic protocols
    • contact suggestions also include ActivityPub contacts
    • new default theme in addition to an older Redbasic version
    • reworked, more powerful but easier-to-use permissions system
    • easier to use once you’re on board
    • supports BBcode, Markdown and HTML within the same post
    • can set Mastodon’s sensitive flag for images
    • built-in announcement/boost/repost/renote/repeat remover, no need to use filter syntax for that
    • extra protection against both mention spam and hashtag spam
    • alt-text can be added to images upon upload, no need to graft it into the image-embedding markup code
    • verification of external identities (available on Mastodon as well, but not on Hubzilla)
  • Ziglin@lemmy.worldEnglish
    2·
    6 days ago

    I pretty much only use Lemmy but also contact friends and share photos on a Nextcloud instance one of them kindly provided (I assume it isn’t federated though?).

    I would really like to start using matrix but unless I host my own instance and get everything ready I’ll never be able to convince my friends to switch, though some of them are slowly getting fed up with discord too.

      • Ziglin@lemmy.worldEnglish
        11·
        5 days ago

        I mostly use Discord for a few group chats, unixporn (please post more of it to Lemmy :3 !unixporn@lemmy.world) and some BG3 stuff. If the group chats moved to Matrix+Jitsi or even some form of Signal (that is still foss and does not require a phone number, self-hosted if possible) I would barely use Discord.

        Edit because somehow I missed the most relevant part: I already barely get memes or trolls so not too many changes there.

    • Kyle Judd@lemmy.autism.placeOPEnglish
      2·
      6 days ago

      You’d like Fediverse apps instead of all the more mainstream apps the world is using.

      I left Facebook and Reddit because other people in my life are the real monsters.

      Mastodon and Lemmy are nicer communities depending on what instance you go to.

  • Blaze (he/him)@feddit.orgEnglish
    57·
    9 days ago

    Lemmy, shortly followed by Piefed.

    Will probably switch once Piefed gets mobile apps support and comments view

        • SorteKanin@feddit.dkEnglish
          14·
          8 days ago

          On the other hand, it has some weirdly opinionated features:

          • Hiding downvoted comments (mob rule)
          • Marking people with many downvotes as “low reputation”. I get it, getting many downvotes is a bad sign but I don’t think the software should try to make a ruling here, I think human moderators should look at the whole picture. It doesn’t make you a bad person that people disagree with you.
          • Communities organized into “topics” - I’m not certain if these groupings are decided by the dev or the admin? Either way I find it a bit problematic.
          • Marking certain communities as “low effort” and not counting “reputation” for those. I don’t feel like the software should be making this kind of value judgement.
          • OpenStars@piefed.socialEnglish
            82·
            8 days ago

            If it helps:

            1. this is controlled by a user setting. I left the one that automatically “collapses” comments below a threshold at the default, but I disabled the one that “hides” comments by setting the threshold to -10000. So, far from taking away user power, it strictly enhances choices by providing new options, only at the user’s behest.

            2. it does have such a “reputation” feature, as too does life. Someone who constantly trolls others gets rather “known” for such. But crucially, it’s a label - it doesn’t hide anything, only enhances what is already there. And yeah it’s a bit of an experiment, perhaps it won’t work. Or perhaps it will be improved further? Based on the above and the responsiveness of the devs, I would expect complete control if features were ever added to actually do anything wrt this score.

            Btw apps already have something similar, as too does PieFed, when adding a label for new accounts - bc people have asked for it, and it can be helpful to know when talking with someone that they are a new account (perhaps they are an alt, but it’s something, and again it’s just a label).

            Yeah, I constantly get downvoted - and some of my posts are among the most heavily downvoted content existing in certain communities (but I also note that such things as Innuendo Studios The Alt Right Playbook got heavily downvoted by the same community as well so… I feel vindicated:-). So I mean it when I say that believe me I KNOW what you mean when expressing those concerns. Perhaps the experiment won’t work out, or perhaps it merely needs tuning - e.g. so that any one post or comment doesn’t weigh so heavily but rather only their aggregate (median rather than mean perhaps? or maybe only the binary choice of positive or negative total score, and even then perhaps not centered at zero but something more highly negative like -10?).

            Also PieFed.social has defederated from hexbear.net and lemmygrad.ml, so those sources of downvoting are entirely removed. It also preferentially weights scores more highly feedback from those with high reputation already - which state I achieved in roughly a week and with only two posts, one a cross-post of the other even. So it’s not like seniors are locking out the noobs.

            Anyway yes there’s enormous potential for misuse there, but it’s also something that people have been clamoring for - so it’s something that they are being responsive enough to try it out?

            1. I’m not sure about the categories - but again the devs are very responsive so surely easy to change things? Also I’ve definitely joined communities that aren’t in those, and while there are large federation issues with any non-Lemmy.World instance right now (I see the same from many instances including my 2 alt accounts elsewhere - so it has little to nothing to do with PieFed; especially after the enormous surge in content surrounding the USA election), I believe that they show up in the main feed.

            2. I have never heard that before but I would support it - more “experimental” communities should be allowed, to try things out, a “safe space” if you will:-).

            All of these are valid concerns - and seem like they are being worked on.

            • dborba@lemmy.worldEnglish
              6·
              8 days ago

              Honestly assigning a label to users that everyone can see based on other users’ opinions seems like a bad idea anyway you put it. Independent of it’s intention, it can stifle constructive arguments, encourage mass alt accounts, cause classism and mobbing. There is a Black Mirror episode with this exact premise where it impacts your real life reputation, people’s perceptions of you & what you’re allowed to do.

              • OpenStars@piefed.socialEnglish
                1·
                8 days ago

                I will concede that it could be problematic, but as for “bad”, I think that depends heavily on the implementation?

                A positive example: “new” accounts could be labeled, to help identify someone who e.g. could use some pointers as for how to do formatting, like how to embed rather than simply link to an image. I have zero issues with this kind of factually-based, simple labels, and from looking at the user requests in various places (Ask Lemmy, Shower Thoughts, etc.), people very much want this.

                Now, complex labels on the other hand, or those that are not straightforward but rather deceivingly simplistic such as “this person is GOOD, this other person is BAD” are a whole other matter altogether. I’m with you there.

                So what about the in-between: is it worth it to use spam filters at all, even though it might throw out something good along the way? The answer to that seems to me to be how well it is tuned, and also ofc up to the user to decide if worth it to them or not. On that note, the account admin https://piefed.social/u/rimu has an “attitude” score that I’ve seen hovering around the 75-82% range, so I doubt we would see a filter such as “must never downvote or receive downvotes”, or 90%, or even 50%. On the other hand, if let’s say ~>90% of someone’s every single post and comment were downvoted heavily, on an account older than let’s say a month, that seems like a different story? That speaks to a repeated pattern of someone not taking a hint as to how their content affects others around them. A horrible implementation could be too simple minded and count e.g. every post or comment as “bad” even if it received 1000+ upvotes but got one downvote, but a smart implementation could do MUCH better than such?

                Ofc people could misuse those in any case - but how is that different from anything else? e.g. I could see a “he/him”, and decide that I don’t want to talk with “a man” or “a person who uses pronouns”. And frankly, someone uses such quick judgement calls is perhaps best to avoid talking with their hated audience anyway, if they are e.g. misogynistic or whatever.

                Gaming the system is a better counterargument - but that too is like spam filtering: not a reason to not do it at all (and thereby allow all spam through?), but rather realizing that no system is perfect. Which is why I like how these are LABELS, not filters. (There are filters too, but those are per-comment/post, not per-user.)

                So, as long as it is optional, and not heavy-handed, I am excited to see how this may develop. Definitely there are concerns, as there would be for any software project or social media endeavor. Remember that there are significant concerns with Lemmy as well:-) - e.g. a good fraction of people on Reddit refuse to check us out due to the known political leanings of the devs. However, it’s a strong counterargument that the model is federated, so someone doesn’t have to join lemmy.ml, yet can still make use of the software from them. Btw the same applies to PieFed as well - it is open source and anyone can spin up their own instance.

                So: we’ll see how it develops. I think that an extremely limited amount of labelling could be helpful, if applied with care and consideration.

            • SorteKanin@feddit.dkEnglish
              6·
              8 days ago

              It doesn’t really help for me, but the beauty of the fediverse is that it doesn’t have to. You can like PieFed, I can prefer Lemmy and we can both still talk :)

              • OpenStars@piefed.socialEnglish
                3·
                8 days ago

                Absolutely 💯!

                And truth be told, we don’t know what the future holds as well. As moderation tools improve on Lemmy.World, as communities evolve, and new concepts rise to the foreground e.g. PieFed, and also Sublinks, both on top of Mbin too.

                A year ago I thought one way about e.g. communities located on Lemmy.ml, then time passed and I changed my mind. Then technology changed and I switched instances to follow.

                What I am saying is: it is so fantastic to have choices! ☺️ THAT is the real win in this situation, IMHO, whether I end up liking PieFed’s approach or not. 🏆

                • SorteKanin@feddit.dkEnglish
                  2·
                  8 days ago

                  Yea it’s cool. Although, regarding sublinks, it really looks like the project has stalled.

        • tron@midwest.socialEnglish
          6·
          9 days ago

          I looked thru this blog hopeful that there would be protection against mod abuse. Instead you can get banned for downvoting? I don’t want to be looking over my back because some dipshit mod had a bad take. This is generating way too much analytical data on users. Communities don’t need empowered super mods treating users like numbers on a spreadsheet. Lemmy for sure has problems (ml) but this isn’t the answer.

          • imaqtpie@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
            4·
            8 days ago

            It doesn’t need to be the answer. It just needs to be an answer for certain use cases. Both platforms can easily coexist. That’s the beauty of federation.

            • flamingos-cant@feddit.ukEnglish
              3·
              8 days ago

              Mods can also see votes in communities they moderate, lemmy-ui just doesn’t show the option (and no other client, to my knowledge, has the feature).

          • Dave@lemmy.nzEnglish
            11·
            8 days ago

            PieFed communicates with Lemmy. Same content, different platform. That’s one awesome thing about federation.

            There is also mbin (fork of kbin), and Sublinks, which is API compatible with Lemmy so should be able to use Lemmy apps with it (from memory, this is what Beehaw are hoping to move to).

  • PlzGivHugs@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
    32·
    9 days ago

    Unfortunately, Lemmy is the only one with content that appeals to me so far (at least to my knowledge, given the near-unsearchable nature of the fediverseso far). The platforms just aren’t large enough.

    • OpenStars@piefed.socialEnglish
      13·
      9 days ago

      Iirc Mastodon is about to add a global search function. I’ve never used it, nor even Twitter (back before it was cancelled into X), just passing on what I heard.

      And PieFed and Mbin are also sort of “Lemmy” (though neither in that graphic that I saw:-).

      • Aksamit@slrpnk.netEnglish
        1·
        7 days ago

        I joined SLRPNK.net shortly before kbin kicked the bucket and I quite like the user interface and customisation options here, even if I don’t comment much these days.

        Also as the pessimistic misanthrope doomer I am, I was originally getting a bit of a kick out of how painfully naive and optimistic the hippies here were/are. I just try to ignore it now though tbh as it’s depressing.

  • seaQueue@lemmy.worldEnglish
    21·
    9 days ago

    Lemmy, I like the simple post structure with all related commentary under the original submission.

    Mastodon is fine for people who like it but it’s hard to follow the thread of replies as every reply is its own individual post.

    I guess the twatter format makes sense for dashing off quick messages but I find it hard to follow and it’s difficult to find communities and topics of interest without also including a shit-ton of noise along with the signal.

  • secret300@lemmy.sdf.orgEnglish
    14·
    8 days ago

    For me it’s definitely Lemmy. I don’t like the microblogging format and never have. I’ve always used forums and then reddit.

    The fediverse just works so well with Lemmy I think. It’s so fun seeing new communities from instances I’ve never heard of. I think this format is perfect for the fediverse

  • QuarterSwede@lemmy.worldEnglish
    13·
    9 days ago

    Mastodon. Easily better than Twitter in every way, even when it wasn’t full of garbage. Can’t say the same for Lemmy, it’s not bad, and in some ways better but in some ways worse.

  • breakfastmtn@lemmy.caEnglish
    13·
    9 days ago
    1. Lemmy
    2. Mastodon
    3. Pixelfed
    4. Various Misskey forks that are all about the same
    5. Peertube

    Lemmy has eaten up just about all the time I used to spend on Mastodon. Pixelfed would be in the running for #1 if it hadn’t become so vaporware-y in the last few months.

  • viking@infosec.pubEnglish
    11·
    8 days ago

    Nextcloud is federated? First time I hear about that.

    For me it’s Lemmy, without a doubt. Never used Twitter, tried mastodon to see what it’s all about, didn’t like it.

    Matrix seems decent, but nobody I know uses it, and finding useful groups is painful, especially on other instances (servers, whatever they call them).

  • eldrichhydralisk@piefed.socialEnglish
    11·
    9 days ago

    Mastodon has successfully replaced Twitter for me, so it’s by far my favorite. It does still need better tools for dealing with large-scale posts and users, but overall it feels like it’s actually doing the job I want done.

    I want to like Piefed/Lemmy more than I actually do. The Fediverse answer to Reddit just doesn’t feel ready for prime time yet. It’s hard to find/connect with communities and the user base doesn’t have that “can address basically any question” magic.

    • BossDj@lemm.eeEnglish
      5·
      9 days ago

      I’ve tried mastodon and followed a couple people. But I never did Twitter either. Could you recommend how I could best use mastodon? Who to follow, or for to sort/search out whatever what’s popular? I couldn’t figure it out

      • eldrichhydralisk@piefed.socialEnglish
        4·
        9 days ago

        Following hashtags is really powerful and useful on Mastodon. You can click any hashtag on a post to see other posts that use it, and if you like it there’s a button you can click to start following that hashtag. You can also search for hashtags in the Explore section. Since there’s no algorithm, hashtags are the primary way to get things that interest you into your feed.

        @FediTips@social.growyourown.services posts tips on how to use Mastodon, so it’s really helpful to follow as a newbie.

        @FediFollows@social.growyourown.services posts lists of interesting accounts on Mastodon, usually by topic. It’s a good way to grow your follow list!

    • OpenStars@piefed.socialEnglish
      4·
      9 days ago

      Right now the tools wouldn’t support mainstream users anyway. They will only come after those are ready, and even then it will be a struggle.

      But for now, e.g. a good fraction of the time on PieFed.social a notification won’t take me to where it is intending to send me, bc of some prior comment being collapsed, hidden, buried in a thread, etc. - and this is the kind of stuff that will quickly send mainstream people packing.