Like a lot of others, I’ve been looking at Reddit alternatives recently which is what landed me here at Lemmy.
How do you think Lemmy compares to Reddit? But also, for people who have tried other Reddit alternatives than Lemmy, how do they compare? What has been the pros and cons of each community for you?
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I’m all in on Lemmy. Haven’t tried many others.
Same, though I want to try Kbin so that I can follow a few people on Mastodon. I don’t Twitter/Mastodon generally, but I like the thought of being able to use either on the same system.
Here’s my opinion on a few I’ve tried:
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Kbin: I liked the UI but I thought calling communities “magazines” was weird. Also, there were features that I felt unnecessary like “boost” or “microblog”. Self-hosting documentation was much worse compared to Lemmy.
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Squabbles: It took me a while to figure out the UI and honestly did not like it. The icon looks very funny as if it’s mocking what the average user is supposed to look like. It also isn’t decentralized.
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Tildes: I liked the UI and the name. Not much to say other than that it’s also not decentralized.
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Discuit: The best UI out of the bunch. It’s very easy to navigate. I wish it also had a naming community prefix like “!” or “m/” or “s/” or “~”. Generally, it feels very Reddit-like but it’s also not decentralized.
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Lemmy: Very rough start but this and Kbin were really the only real options for me because they’re both decentralized. It’s gotten a lot better over the past month in terms of performance and UI. There’s a lot of apps being developed for it too. Most of Lemmy’s annoying quirks are its bugs but those are being fixed after every new release.
Tildes is a non-starter because I’m not cool enough to know anyone to provide an invite.
Just email the dev and ask. That’s what I did.
Same. I firmly think if Tildes had opened up more, it would have risen fast as a viable reddit alternative. That ship has likely sailed, but it’s aiight cus it’s still got great communities.
They didn’t have any interest in becoming a Reddit alternative, at least not for the vast majority of Reddit content like memes and puppy pictures. I think the entire place is text only, which does tend to foster more thoughtful commentary.
I forgot about that. Yeah that’s probably the biggest con.
Also, the Squabbles icon is named Bort. How could anyone dislike Bort??
I had no idea he had a name. I hope he could cheer up a bit!
I actually liked Squabbles when I first understood it but it quickly lost its charm. It’s clearly made with the intent of scrolling past topics, as it basically only gives you a glimpse at one or two comments.
But thing is, I spend too much time actually inside said topics, and the set up leaves too much blank space and I don’t need the actual topic contents on screen at all times, it’s wasting space. And the “show select comments” thing leans too much towards reading the comments that got selected as the overall reaction to the topic, whereas sometimes it is not and the second and third responses say more.
I also tried these and a couple more alternatives to reddit, and unfortunately, kbin and lemmy truly, undoubtedly, are the only apt replacements. There are other good websites for browsing actual, active content (tumblr is still alive guys), but their setup is too different.
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If you don’t like lemmy’s UI, try wefwef. I’ve been using it for a month, and it’s really good so far. https://wefwef.app/
Or if you were an old.reddit user, try https://mlmym.org instead.
As long as they all support ActivityPub, federate, and don’t benefit a corporation of any kind I am all in on them.
Didn’t try the others but Lemmy is basically a less active Reddit so
I already stumbled upon a power hungry mod tooThe big thing with any Reddit alternative is what kind of community is migrating over there. A lot of controversies Reddit has had in the past have centered around vocally discriminatory communities migrating to a new platform after Reddit has decided their content does not align with their views and goals as a company.
Fatpeoplehate, the_donald, probably jailbait I imagine (though before my time on the site thankfully).
The one exception I would say would be the uncerwmonious firing of Victoria from AMA which caused an uproar and led to AMA’s never really feeling the same. I didn’t think about leaving then, but I understood the anger and concept of reddit slowly losing its identity in favour of a more corporate one. Ironically Reddit’s latest decision has led to AMA opening the flood gates to anyone and everyone, giving a more genuine feel to the community.
Now 3rd party apps being shut down (although revanced provides an alternative) has caused a general consensus it’s time to leave, fragmenting communities into different websites and platforms. I’ve encountered some hostility and opinions I personally disagree with on Lemmy, but overall the generalized community here is a good replacement, over a displeased and spiteful group that would fixate on one specific person or upset over one specific group of people. Perhaps thats just the nature of the fediverse overall where - if an admin of lemmy.ca decides to make us a proudboys affiliated network - I can just go elsewhere.
TL;DR Lemmy is all I need. It’s not voat, it can federate with kbin fine, and it’s open allowing anyone and everyone to have their say. I like Lemmy!
Lemmy has been pretty great so far!
At this point it can definitely provide my fix of stupid memes and news articles/discussion. Now to see if it will grow enough to also fill the “community for any niche interest” and “experts randomly showing up in discussions providing valuable insight” parts.
It’s missing on discoverability for now though. Like, I search for a gaming or games community and just found a ton of random community with almost no users in it.
The big thing with any Reddit alternative is what kind of community is migrating over there. A lot of controversies Reddit has had in the past have centered around vocally discriminatory communities migrating to a new platform after Reddit has decided their content does not align with their views and goals as a company.
Fatpeoplehate, the_donald, probably jailbait I imagine (though before my time on the site thankfully).
The one exception I would say would be the uncerwmonious firing of Victoria from AMA which caused an uproar and led to AMA’s never really feeling the same. I didn’t think about leaving then, but I understood the anger and concept of reddit slowly losing its identity in favour of a more corporate one. Ironically Reddit’s latest decision has led to AMA opening the flood gates to anyone and everyone, giving a more genuine feel to the community.
Now 3rd party apps being shut down (although revanced provides an alternative) has caused a general consensus it’s time to leave, fragmenting communities into different websites and platforms. I’ve encountered some hostility and opinions I personally disagree with on Lemmy, but overall the generalized community here is a good replacement, over a displeased and spiteful group that would fixate on one specific person or upset over one specific group of people. Perhaps thats just the nature of the fediverse overall where - if an admin of lemmy.ca decides to make us a proudboys affiliated network - I can just go elsewhere.
TL;DR Lemmy is all I need. It’s not voat, it can federate with kbin fine, and it’s open allowing anyone and everyone to have their say. I like Lemmy!
Eh. Lemmy has the biggest user base because it isn’t a single site. That makes it hard for anything else to match. Since it’s not being a single site also puts a barrier to entry, you get less idiots and low effort crap. Well, outside of the c/s where low effort crap is the point lol.
It feels the most like reddit with a lower degree of the bad parts. The differences tend to be beneficial or neutral rather than a detriment. The only real significant flaw is the early stage of development. There’s a lack of feature and tool parity that’s pretty big. Luckily, the boom in users hasn’t gone very far past where other tools will be needed, and there’s enough apps that are killing it in terms of features that make up for the lemmy development lag that it isn’t something that matters enough to make going to a more centralized site worth it.
I’m repeating a lot from other comments I’ve made, but once discovery improves, and we get a solid organization ability for our subscriptions, you won’t notice any minor differences at all. Moderation tools are weak, but they aren’t necessary yet either. There’s fewer assholes being assholey, and that’s a huge factor that requires moderation more than anything but spam and bad bots. Mostly, the bots have been squashed on the admin side, so (again) there’s no rush for mod tools like automod.
We need a flair system here pretty bad because it would make a lot of the issues with both discovery and filtration go away. Even a # system would be useful, if it wasn’t the markdown for headers.
After that, a lemmy wide search, and you’ve got everything essential from reddit that isn’t already here.
Once I found wefwef, Lemmy was was my perfect replacement for Reddit.
Squabbles is pretty good if you use the Pulse app, but I get more of a The Chive vibe from there rather than Reddit. Plus they don’t allow NSFW there so meh.
Kbin and Lemmy seem the most promising but time will tell.
Yeah I’ve been using Squabbles but it’s a bit too nice. I need some cynicism to fuel my day.
There was one a few years ago that has since shut down. I think it was called Ruqqus or something? Using the website I think it was the best out of all the alternatives I’ve tried, the site was well made and enjoyable, good features and tools (open source, but not federated)
Only problem was the userbase was nothing but far-right users, so racist and bigots.
I think Lemmy is good, once the apps become more polished and refined then it might become my favourite.
I used KBin first, the interface was great but (at least a monthish ago) the federation and community syncing was pretty rough on the instance I was on. Swapped to Lemmy and it’s goin great. Wouldn’t really consider tilde or rabble or the others - too small community and no chance to grow due to being in their own little closed off garden
Not even familiar with them all but Lemmy/Kbin seem cool.
