Pros and Cons of the alternatives

Posted by thebigvsbattlesfan@reddit | RedditAlternatives | View on Reddit | 66 comments

Note: This is my personal opinion and it may be biased or unfactual. I suggest you point out my misconceptions in the comment section.

Based on: https://www.reddit.com/r/RedditAlternatives/comments/14aokyg/all_the_alternatives_ive_checked_out_so_far_and/

Kbin

Pros: Interconnected with Lemmy and Mastodon, somewhat similar structure to Old Reddit, Supports NSFW, Free and Open-Source, Totalling 33,691 users across instances,
Cons: Usually users find it hard to use and is sometimes buggy

Lemmy

Pros: Interconnected with Kbin and Mastodon, somewhat similar structure to Old Reddit, Supports NSFW, Free and Open-Source, totaling 143,225 users across all instances, Some official subreddits are creating their own Lemmy instance, supports NSFW
Cons: Instances can block each other like how Beehaw blocked Lemmy.world and sh.itjust.works , Usually users find it hard to use and is sometimes buggy, controversial developers

Mastodon

Pros: Interconnected with Kbin and Lemmy, totalling 9,941,013 across instances
Cons: Not exactly a Reddit alternative, No upvote or downvote

Saidit

Pros: Uncensored?, Democratically civilized by Graham’s Debate Pyramid, Community funded, Open-Source
Cons: Somewhat traditional in views and possibly intolerant, though perhaps not to the same extent as others here, no NSFW, Centralized

Squabbles

Pros: Active developer and community, Totalling 15,861 users, Has the best UX, The easiest to join, Stable
Cons: Proprietary, Centralized, No NSFW, Developer has plans for a Squabbles+ subscription and is going to introduce ads, No upvote or downvote

Tildes

Pros: Open-Source, small but amazing community, community funded, over 11K users
Cons: Centralized, Some users got banned for some reason, no NSFW

[-]

Claim107@reddit

Speakbits is the best I believe. It's like old reddid, loving the experience there

[-]

motorboat_mcgee@reddit

All the fediverse stuff is confusing the hell out of me... I signed up for Kbin, but no clue how it all works in the interconnected sense

[-]

chernobyl_opal@reddit

If you're not a fan of the fediverse, check out squabbles

[-]

Dodecabrohedron@reddit

Oh my god the absence of stifling hyper-sensitive echo-chamber moderation on those platforms is so refreshing lmfao

[-]

I think kbin has a learning curve, but it’s probably temporary. Kbin is like a month old, and I can see they have the data, but their organization of the UI is just not intuitive at the moment (but I’m sure it’s getting better). Like right now they have it very bare bones, like a skeleton to just make it work.

An example I can give is How to find Magazines you subscribed to.

On reddit, just click the modal button, but on kbin, Click profile, scroll a lot on the right for Subscriptions tab. It’s so hard to find, but it’s there. And now that I know where it is, I’m not bothered by it anymore except will want them to move it somewhere more obvious.

[-]

DgyxmlX3P1oAW6ahgsgf@reddit

IMO of all the platforms above, and I've tried them all, Kbin stands out as the best option given it's interconnectivity between Lemmy and Mastodon.

There is a bit of a learning curve to it's user interface but I guess that's part of being on a new platform.

Signing up was very easy too, no writing essays or anything.

[-]

Sabrees@reddit

Or just click the (slightly hidden) login with Gmail button at the bottom of this page https://kbin.social/login

[-]

DgyxmlX3P1oAW6ahgsgf@reddit

I wasn't really looking for this since I don't use Gmail, but it's good to know the option is there!

[-]

Mintyytea@reddit

They do have facebook sign up too if you’d be interested in that

[-]

Karlor_Gaylord_Cries@reddit

when is the app coming out?

[-]

DgyxmlX3P1oAW6ahgsgf@reddit

For now, I have just been using the mobile webpage, but some people on kbin were talking about using the progressive web-app by:

On iOS: tap the share button in browser => add to home screen

On Android: tap the 3 dot menu button in browser => tap "install" or "add to home screen"

[-]

Karlor_Gaylord_Cries@reddit

Thanks

[-]

GamerMemeBoy@reddit

Seems like there is a 3rd party app coming:
https://mastodon.social/@hariette@tech.lgbt/110545151532293420

[-]

Karlor_Gaylord_Cries@reddit

Dude so cool thank you !

[-]

BeatlesTypeBeat@reddit

Kbin seems to have a better sorting algorithm than lemmy but that's supposed to change with v0.18 coming soon.

[-]

DgyxmlX3P1oAW6ahgsgf@reddit

OMG yes, that was so annoying. I'd be browsing lemmy.world, and there would be a sudden torrent of new stuff flooding down from above, and push what I was trying to click out of sight! It was another reason to push me into Kbin's loving arms lol.

[-]

sdothum@reddit

i hopped onto Kbin as well when all this Reddit nonsense erupted. Slowly getting my head wrapped around the federated environment (which i am certain will, over time, become transparent to users).

The search is impressive given the early days of this platform which is suffering more from the sudden load influx than anything -- stressing some servers -- as far as i can tell. Failing the search -- not sure what "magazine" (community) instance data it searches on -- which appears to be dependent on the state of the federated environment, it can be a bit difficult to find communities at times. i've had to use the direct search "@community@server" syntax a couple times from various references i have stumbled upon in my hunt to find my subreddit alternatives. Once the search becomes more complete, Kbin should become much easier to use.

i don't know much about the federated environment but my impression is that it is an answer to the single corporate overlord dilemma which ultimately plagues all successful social media platforms (though, i guess there are "server" instance overlords).

At this point it is like early reddit and a fresh start with new communities.. not a bad thing, imo.

[-]

IRunWithVampires@reddit

Signing up was very easy too, no writing essays or anything. Just choose username, password, verify email, done. Yep. I really like Kbin for this reason. I just hope an accessible app is on the horizon.

[-]

old_man_snowflake@reddit

Let me offer some counterpoints:

"Free Speech/Uncensored" means nazi propaganda, child sexual abuse, scams, spam, virus links, animal torture, murder videos, and all the other horsemen of free speech. Uncensored is a con to me, not a pro. The point of decentralization is to give assholes a way to post their asshole content in your face, and not have anybody stop them.
Centralized is a pro to me, not a con. Beehaw has a great article (posted in this story somewhere) about why they're de-federating from Lemmy.world and sh.itjustwor.ks. The amount of work it takes to moderate content from another instance is overwhelming.
You'll notice folks talking about browsing lemmy.ml and kbin.social, talking about how comments don't make sense or comments are missing because of different moderation on different forums. If kbin.social removes a troll, that doesn't automatically transfer to anyone else who is federating with them. This also means illegal content can't really be deleted, so it's just a matter of time before the government cracks down on them.

It should come as no surprise that Tildes is where I'm spending a lot more of my time.

[-]

Stippings@reddit

I think the biggest Pro to have is how easy is to join and use. The federated options are theoretically nice, but in it's current practical sense too much of a hassle for the average-Joe.

Squabbles has a big Con not mentioned anywhere: It's still very WIP and lacking a lot of basic features (might be the reason why NSFW is not allowed, but I haven't asked).

[-]

ISieferVII@reddit

Just use lemmy.ml, lemmy.world, sh.itjust.works, or the one I use: links.dashboard.social.

Some random redditor mentioned it in the Lemmy sub I think it was, and said he was planning on keeping it for awhile. It seems nice and casual and they don't defederate from too many instances, so that was good enough for me.

It doesn't matter too much which one you join at first because of the way federation works.

[-]

felixsapiens@reddit

Lemmy is a mess. Places are defederating - beehaw has left.

The whole thing will be endless inter-instance political crap as instances get their back up about something and defederate from this or block that, meaning the whole thing becomes an unusable soup-mess of servers that only talk to some other servers and not others.

That is already happening, just a few days into the “reddit exodus.”

I reckon I’m steering clear of that nonsense.

Open up my Lemmy and first post on the feed is

“lemmy.fmhy.ml ‘s stance on defederation” and discussion about beehaw.

I mean - I don’t want to have to care about all that stuff.

Going to stick to Squabbles.io for now, see how their trajectory goes (about 1500-2000 new users a day at present it seems.) And none of this federation nonsense.

[-]

ISieferVII@reddit

I think you are wildly exaggerating. The place is perfectly useable. Beehaw is a special case because it's trying to be a safe space for people while lemmy.world and sh.itjust.works are trying to be big, open spaces that allow anyone, like reddit. This won't be a thing that happens all the time, because it's reflective of that specific instance's ethos.

Just pick another instance that federates with both and problem is solved. There's a million options, too, of instances that federate with both: special interest instances like the Pathfinder one, the CS sever, Star Trek server, etc, or smaller hosted ones like the one I decided to join (links.dashboard.social), or other universal, general interest instances that aren't those two biggest, like lemmy.one, sopuli.xyz, discuss.technics.de.

This person describes the ethos of the fediverse well: https://beehaw.org/comment/289210

It's not a big open space where everyone can talk and throw shit at each other and troll. Just like mods of subs are free to ban who they want, so are the admins of instances. You just have to pick the one that aligns with your ethos. If you want a smaller, safe space like beehaw you can have that, those users should be allowed to have that. If you want a larger universal instance then you can join the other two. There are lots of options, which is more complicated, but it means you can have a more specific, cultivated experience. And of course you're free to make multiple accounts if you find you don't like the decisions your current admins make.

[-]

felixsapiens@reddit

A couple of days ago only, I posted saying “I’m not sure which instance to join, how can I assess which ones are good or trustworthy.”

And I was told in no uncertain terms that “it doesn’t matter which one you join.” And I was also told in no uncertain terms “it does matter which one you join, as you are putting your trust in the people that run the instance.”

“Beehaw is a special case” - I call absolute bullshit on this. Beehaw will just be one of many special cases - the whole point of a fediverse is that every instance is it’s own special case, isn’t it? There will be more fights, more disagreements over content, moderation, “freedom of speech” etc etc, from one instance to the other. It will be a giant pool of special cases that are supposed to all talk to each other but actually only talk to some. Everybody has an ethos, every instance owner will have some particular ideology to push or some particular hill to die on.

It’s almost hilarious reading the screed from beehaw - not for their decision, or their reasons sing, I don’t even care or even know what their reasons are - but for the tone and language of the screed. It’s all fiefdom stuff, power plays, in groups and out groups, my ideology is better than your ideology, I’m deciding what is best for everyone, etc etc. Basically like teenagers discovering politics University. The comments reflect this. People loudly declaring supper or declaring how they feel betrayed; it’s ludicrous.

“Just pick another instance.” And then do it again when that one fucks up. And do it again when your next instance reveals themselves to be Nazis. And do it again when your next instance runs out of money and closes shop. And do it again when…

You list all the different special interest instances etc - people just don’t care, if they’re looking for a place that “replaces reddit”, they want it all in the one place. Too much choice is just that - too much choice; and although there is no way of discerning how to make a “good choice” vs a “poor choice” you’ll still have endless people telling you why your choice was good or poor.

I’m not sure I’m wildly exaggerating. I think it’s inherent to the design. Give people too much control and individuality and you just have… a mess, because people are messy.

[-]

ericjmorey@reddit

It feels like you're all over the place. Why don't you simply stay on Reddit?

[-]

felixsapiens@reddit

I’m not really all over the place. I have essentially decided that, if an alternative to reddit is required, then for me Squabbles seems to be the place.

But having investigated Lemmy etc with some interest, I don’t have a problem with sharing my opinion on why I think the fediverse stuff is a bit of a lost cause.

Maybe I’ll be wrong, maybe I’ll be right, who knows.

[-]

forestplunger@reddit

It’s pretty easy to sign up and use the federated options. Only problem is figuring out which instance to use. Once you’ve done that just sign up the same way you would on Reddit. Use an app like Mlem or Memmy or whatever and you’ll have a very similar experience.

[-]

BannanDylan@reddit

Not that easy. Got rejected from Beehaw. Kind of makes it hard to use when you get rejected for only providing simple answers to their questions.

[-]

AegisToast@reddit

Squabbles doesn’t have NSFW right now because it’s one dev building a really new site, and NSFW adds a whole lot of extra concerns on top of that. He’s said he’s open to it in the future, but given how much there is to do right now it’s a low priority.

In other words, it’s basically a “Not right now” feature, not a “Will not do” feature.

[-]

KevinCastle@reddit

I don't think it being a WIP is a bad thing. It's only a few weeks old

[-]

felixsapiens@reddit

Squabbles is WIP but the dev is working pretty hard.

It’s basic, but in a sort of “early reddit” basic way. Kinda nice really.

[-]

FeetOnGrass@reddit

Lemmy.world has only email verification, and sh.itjust.works doesn’t even have that.

[-]

sintapilgo@reddit

Saidit reuses the same code from old.reddit.com with minor improvements, so in UI/UX it's the best imo. It's currently the only I know allowing users to create multireddits, the best Reddit feature imo. But due to some content restrictions like no NSFW it will never be popular, unfortunately. It also has the same Reddit drawback of not being able to sort subreddit threads list by activity (most recent comment), which is the default sorting of traditional forums.
Tildes has good UI and can sort by activity, but don't even has open signup or the ability to create your own groups, so it's a no.
The two contenders are Kbin and Lemmy, and Lemmy will win. There are more groups migrating to Lemmy, there are more devs interested in contributing to Lemmy and imo Lemmy already has better features. In Kbin, the only way to save a post is by upvoting, but they should be two different things. Other very bad UX in Kbin is that you can't open external links directly from "subreddit" main page, you need first to click the post, wait it to load with comments and only then you can click the external link with the news/article/whatever.

The main thing Lemmy needs to implement, and I believe it will happen at some point, is the ability to create private and public multireddits.

[-]

alezul@reddit

Wait, Squabbles doesn't have voting? I haven't gotten around to trying it yet but i'm amazed to hear this.

How does good content rise above shitty one then?

I see too much praise for it so i'm guessing i'm missing something.

[-]

Cereal_Bagger@reddit

It has a like button, just not a downvote button. Stuff will still rise to the top, it just doesn't get hidden by downvotes (which to me is still a negative)

[-]

alezul@reddit

Ah ok so it does have a voting system. I was really curious how it would work otherwise.

Sadly no downvotes is a deal breaker for me.

Thanks for the info!

[-]

AegisToast@reddit

IIRC downvoting is in the works, but its opt-in for the sub-communities, not site-wide. So those communities that want to allow downvoting can.

[-]

ckingdom@reddit

Downvotes are the difference between a Reddit and a Facebook. Yeah, it leads to a bit of an echo chamber, but it also filters out a LOT of noise.

[-]

Karlor_Gaylord_Cries@reddit

same

[-]

killme311@reddit

carlspanks?

[-]

r47926@reddit

Interesting post. Interconnection of Kbin / Lemmy / Mastodon sounds interesting. How does it work? I went to Lemmy and had to pick a server and I believe then it only showed me content on that server (not even other Lemmy servers)?
I actually had the opposite impression, that it splits people in many smaller communities instead of aggregating/connecting...

I'm not sure about squabbles. Your description doesn't sound convincing. Some of the topics there seem interesting, but it seems quite small and the layout isn't to my taste.

Tilde seems quite nice, even though small at the moment. How can I get an invite?

[-]

vanmo96@reddit

Check the r/Tildes invite thread or email. They’re currently cycling through opening and closing invites to manage the influx of new users (the server can handle it, we just want to maintain the sites culture and not be overwhelmed).

[-]

GamerMemeBoy@reddit

Simply put, it is all connected by the ActivityPub protocol. Tumblr and Instagram are supposedly going to support it too!

[-]

r47926@reddit

I'm not a developer and therefore more interested in the practical implications and the user experience of it. Eg. how can I interconnect with Kbin or Mastodon as a Lemmy user?

I've checked a few tutorial videos so far and I get the impression they could have really benefitted from a more usability focused design.

[-]

shopdog@reddit

Any videos you'd recommend?

[-]

r47926@reddit

Not really.

Most don't really focus on how to actually use these sites. This video was informative I guess: https://youtu.be/5axSUJj0bBY

Most useful info I read was actually that other reply to my post:

https://www.reddit.com/r/RedditAlternatives/comments/14at98u/comment/jod02be/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3

kbin is way more intuitive than what I've seen of Lemmy. Just start with that, register an account and subscribe to magazines (like you would subscribe to subs on reddit when setting up an account). To do that, open the top bar as he described and click on "All magazines", then you can search.

[-]

DgyxmlX3P1oAW6ahgsgf@reddit

If you're using Lemmy, when you join an instance, if you look at the top you can then click on either Subscribed, Local or All at the top to view content from your subs, the content from the instance you're on, or all the instances this particular instance is federated with.

Some instances federate with all servers, and others are a bit more strict.

To see which have blocked other servers, you can use their home page and add /instances at the end of the url to see, e.g. https://lemmy.world/instances has only blocked one server, compared to https://beehaw.org/instances which has blocked quite a few other servers.

Each server's admin's will have their own reasons for blocking another instance, e.g. lemmygrad.ml is blocked by beehaw.org because of the 'tankie' thing (I don't really know much about this).

If an instance has blocked another instance, the users on each instance will not see content or messages from the other.

Each instances has their own 'Communities' - which is the equivalent to subreddits. You may be thinking how to find the main 'Community' across the whole Lemmy network - you can use https://lemmyverse.net/ to do this.

Usually the main 'Community' has already been searched for in your instance, but if it hasn't and you are the first to try and join that community from your instance, you can click on the little copy link and paste it into your instance search bar to find it, e.g. "!announcements@lemmy.ml", and from then on you will be able to sub to that Community. This also works for Kbin, except you remove the '!' so it is just announcements@lemmy.ml.

Each instance also has their own rules around registering on their instance, some require you to justify why you should be allowed to join (e.g. Beehaw.org), and others have direct signups (e.g. lemmy.world).

Kbin currently pulls threads from the whole of Lemmy + Kbin, and calls their version of subreddits, 'magazines'. You can view Lemmy communities on Kbin with links like so: https://kbin.social/m/technology@beehaw.org. So far I have not heard of Kbin being 'defederated' from by any of the Lemmy instances.

I ended up going with Kbin, because it has all the content from Lemmy, you can interact with all of the communities / posts from Lemmy and the signups were open and simple to do so at the time (lemmy.world was not around when I did, and I didn't feel like writing a little essay to join a Lemmy server!).

Kbin also has different instances you can find here: https://fedidb.org/software/kbin, but I just joined on the main instance which is https://kbin.social/, which was taking a hammering before but is nice and smooth since ernest fixed it.

[-]

r47926@reddit

Thanks, that makes it a little clearer.

Do you have news feed/start page, where posts from all magazines you've joined show up? Can it display posts from Lemmy or Mastodon like this as well, or do you actively have to go to a community (like going to https://kbin.social/m/technology@beehaw.org)?

[-]

DgyxmlX3P1oAW6ahgsgf@reddit

There is a homepage you can view here https://kbin.social/ and you can enable a 'top bar' by clicking on the settings cog, and clicking 'yes' on the option. You should then be able to click on Subscribed, Moderated, Favourites etc., click on a random mag at the top, or click 'All Magazines' to browse the relevant mags.

It displays posts from Lemmy and Kbin by default, under 'threads' and stuff from Mastodon under 'Posts'.

[-]

postal-history@reddit

The Lemmy developers aren't just controversial, they're also swift with deleting comments they disagree with politically. Tildes moderation at least makes sense to me, the admin deletes low-effort comments and mean sniping

[-]

app_priori@reddit

That's on the main instance like Lemmy.ml. The developers are bona fide Stalinists and do not brook any criticism of China or Russia. But Beehaw's decision to defederate from two other major instances just shows that moderation is an issue between instances.

The fediverse is very finicky and is prone to fiefdom-ship.

[-]

ISieferVII@reddit

They can't do that if you're not on their instance: lemmygrad or lemmy.ml. Join lemmy.world, sh.itjust.works, beehaw or another and they can't do that. I'm on links.dashboard.social if people want to join a smaller instance to keep things easier on the servers of the big ones.

[-]

br34th5@reddit

Thanks for the list, for now I like Squabbles the most

[-]

PM-ME_UR_TINY-TITS@reddit

Shame most of them don't allow nsfw, thats one of the main draws of reddit, can be looking at cute animals one moment to seeing something that unlocks a kink you never knew you had

[-]

watercoffeebeerz@reddit

Thank you for this, I still don’t fully understand Mastadon so idk if I should just hop on Lemmy or Kbin. I need to check out more information when I get the chance. Appreciate ya.

[-]