There's so many ways to interact with the Fediverse. The most popular, by far, seems to be Mastodon, but Lemmy, Misskey, and Pixelfed are also relatively popular. Kbin used to be popular, but it has apparently been abandoned, and is mostly dead at this point.

I recently learned that Mbin is a thing, checked it out, and it looked really cool! Has anyone used it? How different is it from Lemmy? I hear they have better integration with Mastodon.

What Fediverse services do you actually, regularly use?

For me, it's mostly Lemmy, though I do hop on Mastodon every now and then.

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[–] Pamasich@kbin.earth 16 points 3 days ago (7 children)

I'm an Mbin user.

Mbin is a fork of kbin. Kbin's dev didn't really trust people much, so he wanted to have sole control over what code gets added to kbin. Which led to issues when he wasn't available and development just came to a halt for months because no one could accept changes anymore. The other devs wanted more control so they could actually get shit done, so they decided to fork the project instead.

How different is it from Lemmy? I hear they have better integration with Mastodon.

I think the biggest difference is really the fact that you can subscribe to not just communities but also users. This is where the superior Mastodon compatibility comes into play by allowing us to see posts that don't mention communities. Lemmy only sees Mastodon posts if they mention a community explicitly or an Mbin user has interacted with it.

There's also other stuff like public upvotes, boosting, tags, reputation (karma), and custom community CSS. I don't really know Lemmy well enough to give a full list of where they differ.

[–] gon@lemm.ee 8 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago) (3 children)

I’m an Mbin user.

The Fediverse is pretty cool... Hello, Mbin user!

you can subscribe to not just communities but also users.

Oh, that's interesting.

Not sure what the point of public upvotes is, or what boosting is, but tags and custom CSS sounds cool. How's my Mbin karma?! IDK if that's how it works... I've signed up on your same instance, I'll see how it goes.

Thank you for your comment!

[–] Fitik@fedia.io 3 points 3 days ago (4 children)

How's my Mbin karma

collapsed inline media

It's 2500~, but it doesn't affect anything on Mbin, so there's no point worrying about it

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[–] m_f@discuss.online 14 points 3 days ago (2 children)

Mostly Lemmy via discuss.online, with a little bit of Pixelfed via social.photo and Mastodon via utter.online.

I was using Loops pretty heavily for a while, but the most recent update made it not work right on my phone (and there's no web version), so maybe I'll try again when it's out of beta. It's also not truly federated atm, so only sort of counts.

I've tried out a bit of PieFed and it looks really nice. Probably the best Lemmy threadiverse alternative atm. The dev does some interesting experiments like Private Voting

[–] gon@lemm.ee 7 points 3 days ago (3 children)

How's Pixelfed's federation work? I thought it was an image-based thing, like Instagram, so how does that interop with, say, Lemmy?

I was using Loops pretty heavily for a while

Is that like TikTok? Or like Reels, I guess, since it's Pixelfed. A shame it doesn't work for you... I'm big on TikTok, might just give it a try, though I'm not sure I can find the content I want on such a niche platform.

PieFed and it looks really nice. Probably the best Lemmy threadiverse alternative atm.

Over Lemmy? Why do you say so? I see what they list as differences from Lemmy and some of the features seem pretty nice, but I'm skeptical of this reputation business. Feels a little like Reddit karma, I don't know.

[–] mesamunefire@piefed.social 6 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago) (6 children)

Pixelfed federation works well. it shows up on anything activityhub related.

Works closer to mastodon with hashtags.

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[–] OpenStars@piefed.social 3 points 3 days ago (3 children)

PieFed is more advanced than Lemmy in several ways, while less so in others.

Like for one it offers fantastic onboarding to the Fediverse via a wizard asking users what topics they are interested in and then signs them up to communities.

And for another, at any time users can view Categories of Communities, such as all things Fediverse, News & Politics, or Gaming, and now users can even create our own customized Feeds - all of this is in addition to rather than instead of the traditional Subscribed and All feeds.

Users can also follow anything - a user, community, post, single comment, etc. - plus stop following comments that you've written but no longer wish to receive notifications for.

It's REALLY cool! The major downsides revolve around it being newer and so a bit less polished, like there's now a post preview feature but that is not yet available for comment replies.

The codebase is written in Python, so is possible for more people to help out with making changes than Lemmy, written in Rust. Some people wonder if it might not scale as well to larger number of users, but so far that is not a problem and the speed of updates seems well worth that trade-off.

[–] gon@lemm.ee 3 points 3 days ago (1 children)

I see... You make a compelling argument, to be honest, and those are some nice features. I really like this custom Feed thing.

I'm definitely delving into Piefed in the coming days.

[–] OpenStars@piefed.social 4 points 3 days ago (8 children)

It is very much worth checking out, yes!

I use it as my daily driver. Some functions, like searching for posts, are abysmally bad - but thankfully that's the only one in that category. For me who can hop over to a Lemmy alt when I need to, PieFed is a great main. Another downside is that often I receive a notification for something that I cannot see, for a variety of reasons including that I've blocked all users from an instance (but hey, on PieFed that's actually possible in the first place!).

PieFed is definitely still in alpha, though ironically a better experience than Lemmy in many ways for all of that, even though a more frustrating one in other ways. An API is currently being tested using the Thunder app, which should help smooth the usability issues.

My advice: most definitely make a PieFed account - you have nothing to lose there - and also hold onto your older one. You'll use it less and less often, you'll see:-). There is a bit of a learning curve though, since PieFed offers so many new features and you'll want to try out this and that to see what works best for you. e.g. for some lower-volume communities, I have notifications set up to receive every single new post, rather than have to wait to find that while scrolling Subscribed or All. It really helps! (But can be quite overwhelming for higher-volume communities - the better way now could be to create a custom topic Feed, which I haven't tried yet but that's awesome that I now can:-).

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[–] m_f@discuss.online 3 points 3 days ago

Pixelfed/Mastodon/etc sort of work with Lemmy, in that they can see Lemmy posts. Lemmy can see posts from them if you tag them appropriately, which rarely happens. They only sort of federate properly. And yeah, Loops is like TikTok for the Fediverse.

I'm not saying PieFed is better than Lemmy, just saying that apart from Lemmy, your best option is probably PieFed atm.

[–] 3dmvr@lemm.ee 4 points 3 days ago

loops needs to add selfhosting for vid quality options alone, everythings so blurry

[–] TommySoda@lemmy.world 12 points 3 days ago (1 children)

Mostly Lemmy for me but sometimes Pixelfed. I'm also a psychopath and browse "everything" with all NSFW filters turned off while at work, so I'm probably not a good judge.

[–] gon@lemm.ee 4 points 3 days ago (1 children)

That is actual insanity yeah, I have NSFW turned off even at home...

[–] TommySoda@lemmy.world 7 points 3 days ago (1 children)

I open the links too.

[–] gon@lemm.ee 6 points 3 days ago (1 children)

Blocked and reported. Get out of my feed. /j

[–] TommySoda@lemmy.world 5 points 3 days ago

I know, I'm a mad man. But I stand by my principles of seeing boobs at work.

[–] xigoi@lemmy.sdf.org 8 points 3 days ago (2 children)

Only Lemmy. I could never find anything interesting on Mastodon and hate the Twitter-based format.

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[–] ray1992xd@feddit.nl 7 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago) (3 children)

In random order

Loops

Peertube very sparingly. Youtube is still king.

Lemmy. Nuked my 14 year old Reddit account today. Lemmy is great.

Pixelfed

Mastodon

Wordpress if that is counted as federated

[–] gon@lemm.ee 5 points 3 days ago (2 children)

Gosh, I have to try out Loops...

Lemmy. Nuked my 14 year old Reddit account today. Lemmy is great.

NGL, I think Lemmy is better than Reddit. I enjoy it more. I can't put my finger on why, though... They're basically the same... Maybe it's just a UI issue.

[–] circuitloss@lemmy.world 4 points 3 days ago (1 children)

I can tell you why, it's the absolutely shitty Reddit mobile app that's filled with annoying ads. Meanwhile, Lemmy has some really good third-party apps

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[–] ray1992xd@feddit.nl 4 points 2 days ago (1 children)

I do believe the type of people and lack of the karma system also makes it better. People do anything to get some karma.

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[–] coldsideofyourpillow@lemmy.cafe 6 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (1 children)

Mastodon, via jorts.horse. I use it mainly to shitpost, and occasionally catch up on news.

PeerTube, via spectra.video. It was part of an effort to switch away from YouTube, but due to the abysymal discoverability, I am forced to concur that it hasn't been doing well as a replacement. I now just use Grayjay to see videos, regardless of platforms.

For now, I use Lemmy via lemmy.cafe. However, when PieFed gets a stable app, I plan to switch over to it, probably via feddit.online.

Maybe I'll try out Loops when it gains federation support.

[–] gon@lemm.ee 4 points 2 days ago

However, when PieFed gets a stable app, I plan to switch over to it

Yeah, lots of people have been talking highly of PieFed.

Maybe I’ll try out Loops when it gains federation support.

Oh, no Fed yet?! Dang...

[–] AbnormalHumanBeing@lemmy.abnormalbeings.space 5 points 3 days ago (1 children)

I'm currently busy setting up my own Lemmy instance and PeerTube instance. Before the Fediverse, YT and Reddit were basically the only things I used, I was never a big fan of twitter-like social media. So those slot in nicely into those itches to scratch. (although there are still some creators I follow on YT, I have been watching it a lot less after getting serious with PeerTube)

[–] gon@lemm.ee 4 points 3 days ago (1 children)

Can you find a lot of content on PeerTube? What do you look for on there?

[–] AbnormalHumanBeing@lemmy.abnormalbeings.space 5 points 3 days ago (3 children)

By now: Yeah, there are some nice creators on PeerTube. Overall, it feels a bit more like old YouTube, many more people just creating because they want to, instead of chasing fame, as well as bizarre and weird little videos here and there. One advantage of it: It has much better native embedding into Lemmy (at least on newer versions)!

Much like in other fedi-places, it's work to curate your own feed instead of having algorithms feed you. I have ADHD, so usually, I have some video or something running on my second screen while working on other stuff, and whenever my attention is spent, I switch to there and scour the recent or trending feed (or new vids from subscribers) for something interesting to share and watch.

For anyone interested - I am always happy to plug !peertube@lemmy.world - we recently hit 200 subscribers and have been steadily growing. If you are looking for an instance to join, I am still tinkering with it, but mine is open to new applications for as long as the server resources allow.

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[–] noodlejetski@lemm.ee 5 points 3 days ago (1 children)

Lemmy, Mastodon and Pixelfed. what I like about the last one is that I managed to find enough accounts posting pictures that I like, that I pretty much get to press like on everything I see on my feed there.

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[–] ocean@lemmy.selfhostcat.com 5 points 3 days ago (1 children)

Lemmy and Mastodon. Only lemmy really interests me. I got pixelfed and bookwyrm too, the latter seems pretty good replacement for good reads. I don’t see myself posting just to myself on pixelfed. I also find mastodon very difficult if you don’t want to talk about Linux or American politics. I absolutely do not get the point of friendica and think the low MAU shows that no one wants Facebook 2.0

[–] gon@lemm.ee 3 points 3 days ago (1 children)

I absolutely do not get the point of friendica and think the low MAU shows that no one wants Facebook 2.0

Quite frankly, I don't even want regular Facebook...

[–] ocean@lemmy.selfhostcat.com 4 points 3 days ago

That’s just my point! Facebook but federated is still facebook

[–] mesamunefire@piefed.social 4 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago) (1 children)

Piefed /Lemmy for keeping up with topics.

GoToSocial for keeping up with people and how they are going.

Pixelfed for my dog pictures and other people's pets.

Peertube mostly for my family (dog or otherwise) videos.and subscriptions. I have around 40 now :)

Other than Lemmy/piefed, I self host everything on a very small server. It's fun if you like that kinda thing.

[–] gon@lemm.ee 3 points 3 days ago (1 children)

Other than Lemmy/piefed, I self host everything on a very small server. It’s fun if you like that kinda thing.

That's totally awesome :D So GoToSocial, Pixelfed, and Peertube? Awesome!!!! :D

Piefed /Lemmy for keeping up with topics.

Which one do you prefer, actually? Piefed, or Lemmy? What are the benefits and drawbacks of each? I'm really interested in all the threadiverse services.

[–] mesamunefire@piefed.social 4 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago) (8 children)

That's a very good question. I don't have a good answer ATM. I have both because I'm on the fence.

Lemmy and piefed both scratch the topic discovery itch. Both are excellent software.

Piefed pros:

Topics (collection of communities) are awesome to subscribe to.
One of the best fediverse integrations out there.
The python is easy to read.
Mod tools are great.
The main dev is a treasure

Lemmy pros:

Very reddit like UI.
Lots of apps phone or otherwise.
Very well supported by admins of the bigger instances

Lemmy has an easier way to post than piefed. The selection of communities is a bit better. Piefed is much easier to stand up on home servers (I did it once). It's also seeing a large amount of dev work right now. And as I've said before it has much better fediverse integration than Lemmy. Lemmy has this issue where it's hard to federate with other services, even when you search using the search tool.

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[–] Pillavoine@l.hostux.net 4 points 3 days ago (1 children)

Lemmy, Mastodon, Pixelfed and Peertube.

[–] gon@lemm.ee 3 points 3 days ago (1 children)

You're a mime?! That's so cool! :D

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[–] chottomatte@lemdro.id 4 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

Mostly Lemmy, but also Peertube, rarely Mastodon I also have accounts on other Fediverse services but I don't use it

[–] pan0wski@infosec.pub 4 points 2 days ago

I mainly use Lemmy (infosec.pub) and I sometimes use Mastodon (mstdn.plus).

[–] Kolanaki@pawb.social 3 points 2 days ago

Lemmy and Matrix. And I don't use Matrix a helluva lot.

[–] yessikg@lemmy.blahaj.zone 3 points 2 days ago

Lemmy, Sharkey (like Mastodon but with more features), and WAFRN (the fediverse's Tumblr alternative)

[–] umbraroze@lemmy.world 3 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Mastodon, Pixelfed, Lemmy and Bookwyrm. They all seem to cover most of my social media needs which (in all other cases beside Lemmy) can be described as shouting in the void and being happy if someone else is there too.

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