This thread is for providing ethical alternatives to software owned by companies with not-so-ethical practices. It's also an expression of hope, that something better can exist, that we don't have to accept monopolies and exploitation.
This thread was created because I have the knowledge. It took many years to make sense of the entire landscape, others shouldn't have to do the same. And so, I share my knowledge in the hopes that others are now able to take action. Even if, for numerous valid reasons, you can't take action yourself, you can still have something to recommend and root for!
This is a massive topic and the OT has been restricted to what I consider the essentials and care has been taken not to overload any one software category.
Hopefully this can be something of a living document as the landscape changes. Voice your opinions and experiences with software listed or not. Feel free to make software suggestions and changes to the OT!
KEY:
๐ฒ = Environmentally Friendly
๐ฎ = For The Future
๐ = Privacy Conscious
๐ = Open Source
๐ฐ = Paid
๐งโ๐ป๏ธ = Self-Hostable
โ = Recommended
I use these emojis in headers as well to signify it applies to all in the list.
For mobile focused sections I will use:
โถ๏ธ - Android
๐ - iOS
Notes:
Software & Services
Desktop/Laptop Operating System - Windows & MacOS ๐โ
Linux-based OSes are the best in my opinion. They're incredibly easy to use and have made great strides in recent years to not explode and provide GUIs over terminal.
Bazzite - A gaming focused option with many quality of life improvements. It has a nice "image picker" that automatically includes additional packages recommended for your system (such as Nvidia drivers). Maintained by the community, using Fedora Silverblue as a base, I recommend it over the official version because it's built to avoid the few remaining pitfalls of Linux. In the worst case switching (or "rebase") to the official version is supported.
Bluefin - Bazzite but for developers. It has a cloud-native focus.
Mobile Operating System - Android & iOS ๐
There are Linux distros that run on mobile. They're cool but I very much wouldn't recommend them yet. Compatibility is spotty. Give them a try if you have the inclination.
Ubuntu Touch
Plasma Mobile
postmarketOS
/e/OS - This is the only degoogled Android rom I'm listing here as it allows using your own Nextcloud instance instead of the traditional cloud services (Google Photos, Files etc). It supports a fair few of the most popular phones to varying difficulty of installation.
Email Providers - Gmail, Hotmail etc.
POSTEO ๐ฒ๐ฐ - I've seen them recommended a few times. Super environmentally conscious.
Proton Mail ๐โ - Security focused email with a free option for those who just need the one account.
Mailbox ๐๐ฐ๐ฒ - Uses 100% green energy and is recommended in privacy circles.
Stalwart ๐งโ๐ป๏ธ๐๐ฎ - Self hosted software with the goal of making it viable to run your own mail server.
Email Clients - Gmail App, Outlook
These clients can be used with any email provider. Your email provider may have their own bespoke apps you can use.
Desktop - Linux, Windows, MacOS
Thunderbird ๐โ - Thunderbird is THE open source email client. Made by Mozilla, the makers of Firefox.
Mailspring ๐- Pretty looking email client. It does have a paid tier for more commercial features.
Vivaldi - This browser comes with an email client built-in.
Desktop - Linux Only
Geary ๐- Email client with a Gnome style interface.
Kmail ๐- Email client with a KDE style interface.
Mobile - Android, iOS
I couldn't find any for iOS so either use Apple Mail or if you're lucky your email provider, such as Proton Mail, may have one.
Thunderbird (Currently "K-9 Mail") ๐โถ๏ธ - Thunderbird recently took ownership of an open source app and are developing it under their umbrella.
Fairmail ๐๐โถ๏ธ - Fully featured email client. Neat, intuitive user interface.
Browser - Google Chrome, Safari
The goal here is to move away from Chromium based browsers entirely but barring that just getting away from Google will suffice.
Desktop - Linux, Windows, MacOS
Firefox ๐ - I don't really like vanilla Firefox honestly. It's aight.
LibreWolf ๐๐ - Privacy Focused Firefox
Waterfox ๐๐ - Over the last year regained it's independence from an Ad company. Though not as privacy focused as LibreWolf, it provides lots of customisation options and is working on implementing new features.
Vivaldi โ - In the meantime if none of the Firefox-based alternatives do it for you I highly recommend Vivaldi. The company are solid and have their own Mastodon instance.
Mobile - Android, iOS
I relied on external recommendations for this set of browsers.
Firefox ๐โถ๏ธ๐ - I don't really like vanilla Firefox honestly. It's aight.
Mull ๐โถ๏ธ - This is a privacy oriented and deblobbed web browser based on Firefox.
Cromite ๐โถ๏ธ- Privacy focused Chromium browser with ad-blocking built in. It's technically a fork of Chromium rather than being based on it.
Vivaldi โถ๏ธ๐ - A more mainstream cross-platform option. Blocks ads and syncs between devices.
DuckDuckGo Browser ๐โถ๏ธ๐ - I actually only recommend this for iOS as it loses out to the other privacy centric options on Android.
Kiwi Browser ๐โถ๏ธ - Chromium-based with support for extensions.
Search Engine - Google Search
Ultimately Google Search is bad now anyway for the most part. You're just adding on "reddit" to everything anyway.
If you're interested in where each search engine pulls it's results you can look at this map.
DuckDuckGo ๐ - Search with a Privacy Focus
Startpage ๐ - It piggy backs off of Google but keeps you private
Ecosia ๐ฒ - All profits go towards climate action!
SearXNG ๐๐งโ๐ป๏ธ - It's a self-hosted meta search engine. Which means it piggy backs off of other search engines.
Kagi ๐๐ฐ - Instead of harvesting your data for money they just ask for payment up front. It's a bit expensive (50% off and I'm in).
Instant Messaging - WhatsApp & iMessage ๐
It's so hard to switch I know but it can still be good to know the alternatives. Matrix is an ecosystem built around a protocol of the same name. It's like the Fediverse but for instant messaging.
For a more comprehensive look in privacy terms you can look at this spreadsheet.
Matrix ๐งโ๐ป๏ธ๐โ - Matrix is an open protocol for secure decentralised communications, for our purposes instant messaging. Either use one of many hosted servers or you can host your own Matrix server, I recommend Conduit homeserver personally as it's easy to set up. I bridge Messenger & Discord on my server.
There are quite a few different apps you can use with Matrix, listed below are some of the best:
Simplex ๐ - I thought I'd mention it as it's interesting. It does away with user IDs entirely.
Note Taking/Personal Knowledge Management - Notion, Google Keep, Evernote
Obsidian โ - I love it. It's amazing. It's not open source though.
logseq ๐ - I've heard good things. Similar to Obsidian though I've never tried it.
Joplin ๐๐งโ๐ป๏ธ - Collaborative tools and E2EE device sync are its stand out features. Quite different in approach to the alternatives.
Password Management - Google Pass & Lastpass
Lastpass has had a lot of data breaches and aren't trustworthy. Own access to your own passwords.
Bitwarden โ ๐๐ - Best password manager out there and it's free for personal use. I self-host Bitwarden with the Vaultwarden server.
Android App Store
Sideloading other app stores. These are your best options.
F-Droid ๐ - Exclusively for FOSS applications
Droid-ify ๐ - A better looking material and feature-rich frontend to F-Droid
Aurora Store ๐ - A privacy friendly client for accessing the Google Play Store
Period Tracking ๐โ
Privacy is synonymous with ethical in this case for obvious reasons. The options listed below are the only ones that store data locally, have no account requirements and contain no trackers.
Drip ๐ - This has been personally recommended to me. Open Source.
Euki - Closed sourced and it is worth noting though that Euki does link to third parties within the app. Each of which will have its own data collection policies, something to keep in mind.
Specialised Tools ๐
Vector Graphics - Adobe Illustrator, Affinity Designer 2
Inkscape โ - A beautiful example of open source, with an amazing community and development team. Here's a video I enjoyed watching from when the last major update, 1.3, was released last year. 1.4 is around the corner.
Graphite - A new kid. Seems to work in the browser and has node based layers. "Graphite is the first and only graphic design app to offer procedural vector editing."
Graphic Design - Figma, Canva, Affinity Publisher 2
Penpot - I used this when Figma got bought out. It's very nice. 2.0 should be out soon
Photo Editor - Photoshop, Affinity Photo 2
Gimp - The classic photoshop alternative. Still servicable, still ugly. 3.0 is (18) years in the making though and is releasing in the next few months.
Krita โ - One of those super powerful open source tools that trancends its original purpose. It markets itself as more painter focused but secretly rivals photoshop. Apparently if you change the shortcuts to Photoshop's you can barely tell the difference.
Image Processor - Adobe Lightroom
Dartktable - Raw Photo Editing & Colour Correction.
RawTherapee - Look I don't know anything about these things but people love them.
Social Media ๐๐งโ๐ป๏ธ
I'm going to be focusing on Fediverse based apps here. There are smaller centralised services that are ethical too which you are free to ask about in the comments. For everything in this section assume they're ActivityPub compatible.
The Fediverse has it's issues and as such isn't viable for everyone.
Goodreads Alternative
Bookwyrm - It's solid. I don't really hear people complain about anything so I assume it does it's job right. You can import your Goodreads data.
Twitter & Microblogging
There's tons of these and I'm sure to miss some very good ones.
Mastodon - King of the fedi space. I don't actually like it or recommend it. I don't personally find it usable and the worst part is that your posts don't migrate with you. I also don't think the non-profit behind it communicates with the wider fedi community very well.
Catodon ๐ฎ - Another fork of Firefish but they've teamed up with IceShrimp for their base. They want to align more with Mastodon than the more wacky Firefish. If they pull it off then I'd recommend this hands down over Mastodon.
GoToSocial - Bare bones fediverse server compatible with Mastodon apps.
So all of these (except Misskey) use the same API and so are compatible with the same mobile apps and alternative browser frontends. I see Tusky for Android, Mammoth for iOS and Phanpy for Web recommended often.
If you really really can't get on with Fedi then give Bluesky a shot. I'm not a fan but it's in theory bridgeable to the Fediverse.
Reddit Alternative
The alternatives currently lack activity in niche topics. The current thinking is that closer integration between communities, instances and other federated reddit alternatives will spark new growth.
Lemmy โ - I use an instance everyday though I don't have an account just to see what's going on. The devs are super communist and have been accused of being Tankies.
Mbin - It's a fork of kbin with a more rapid development cycle. They're actually Twitter and Reddit in one. This is the kind of interesting stuff you can do on the Fediverse
Piefed - Another cool one, it's early on. It's putting an emphasis on healthy communication. One example is adding the ability for authors to press a "I've changed my mind" button in an effort to de-escalate situations. Inspired by this blog post. Era could do with this honestly.
These all implement the Lemmy API and are compatible with the same apps. Mobile devs that couldn't develop for Reddit anymore switched to Lemmy instead such as Boost and Sync. I'm unsure what the best ones are. List
Instagram
Pixelfed - This thing is genuinely slick. There's not many reason not to use this over Instagram. I think you can import your Instagram data across. Mobile Apps
Youtube
This is a big one. I'm going to recommend a hybrid approach until Peertube really takes off. I also suggest donating to the creators you enjoy and asking for a Peertube mirror.
Peertube - An amazing bit of technology. It's peer to peer Youtube. Peertube does everything right except for a lack of creators. They have a 2024 roadmap that I highly recommend reading. It's focus is on providing features for creators. From a viewer perspective it's not really missing anything. I'd love to be able to use it more.
Bridging Youtube and Peertube in the same app is the only route I foresee to making Peertube successful.
NewPipe [Android] - Combines a few services together in one android app: Youtube, Peertube, Bandcamp, Soundcloud and more. This is the hybrid approach I think we should take.
Grayjay [Android] - Similar to NewPipe
PeerTube Companion - A browser extension only for Firefox sadly that redirects certain Youtube videos to its Peertube version instead.
There are no iOS or Android TV apps as yet. Though the non-profit behind peertube is working to make official apps.
Discord - None of these are Fediverse
I don't think any of these are viable as alternatives to be honest but it's worth a look.
Revolt - Don't know much about it. I have spoken with the devs before but I personally feel they're reinventing the wheel. No federation is a bad choice in my book.
Spacebar - Free and open source, full stack reverse engineering and re-implementation of Discord. This is more acceptable to me as it's literally just meant to be self-hostable Discord.
Matrix - Same stuff as in the instant messaging section. It often gets mentioned but it's only a somewhat viable alternative. If you only use it for chat then the Discord bridge works really well but takes some set up. I recommend the in development Commet app if you want the Discord experience.
Commune - It's aiming to be the de-facto fediverse discord alternative. It builds on Matrix and combines with ActivityPub to get the best of both worlds. It's early in development but it's a very interesting idea.
OTHER LISTS & GUIDES
For people focused on privacy you can view this amazing guide for recommendations and knowledge.
If there's anything else you need you can't go wrong with open source: opensourcealternative.to.
Lemmy Post on Android FOSS Apps.
CHANGELOG
2024-02-20 - Init
2024-02-28 - Added Bluefin as a developer focused version of Bazzite
2024-03-01 - Grouped the Matrix clients for Instant Messaging and gave a bit more info about Matrix.
2024-03-02 - Added Mobile Browsers and Android FOSS Apps List.
2024-03-03 - Added email clients. I also made some styling changes to include desktop and mobile clients under the same header.
2024-03-20 - Added Kiwi Browser for android mobile. Added Joplin for note taking.
2024-03-25 - Removed Floorp and Kiwi Browser, Added Waterfox
2024-03-26 - Added Specialised Tools section with Vector Graphics, Graphic Design, Image Processing and Photo Editing tools.
2024-05-10 - Re-added Kiwi Browser after further research.
This thread was created because I have the knowledge. It took many years to make sense of the entire landscape, others shouldn't have to do the same. And so, I share my knowledge in the hopes that others are now able to take action. Even if, for numerous valid reasons, you can't take action yourself, you can still have something to recommend and root for!
This is a massive topic and the OT has been restricted to what I consider the essentials and care has been taken not to overload any one software category.
Hopefully this can be something of a living document as the landscape changes. Voice your opinions and experiences with software listed or not. Feel free to make software suggestions and changes to the OT!
KEY:
๐ฒ = Environmentally Friendly
๐ฎ = For The Future
๐ = Privacy Conscious
๐ = Open Source
๐ฐ = Paid
๐งโ๐ป๏ธ = Self-Hostable
โ = Recommended
I use these emojis in headers as well to signify it applies to all in the list.
For mobile focused sections I will use:
โถ๏ธ - Android
๐ - iOS
Notes:
- Alternative front-ends, for Youtube for example, aren't listed.
- I do not know much about phones so keep that in mind.
- I plan to do more research into the companies behind some of these options to make sure they're all above board. I'll include sources and a little write up.
Software & Services
Desktop/Laptop Operating System - Windows & MacOS ๐โ
Linux-based OSes are the best in my opinion. They're incredibly easy to use and have made great strides in recent years to not explode and provide GUIs over terminal.
I believe that "immutable/atomic" distros are the future and I'll list my recommendations below. Before I used one of these my Linux distro at the time (Ubuntu) would fall apart after each major update (my brothers was the same).
Those on Windows may be aware of the "program files" folders. Now imagine you couldn't modify those folders and they were the same across every single installation. That's the power of an "immutable" or increasingly often "atomic" OS. You get all your apps from the Software centre and it's a nice experience. Updates happen in the background and apply on restart.
Downsides:
- Nvidia drivers can be a pain. Bazzite sorts it out for you. Open source drivers are being worked on.
- Fractional Scaling is in the works
- HDR is in the works
- VRR is in the works
Those on Windows may be aware of the "program files" folders. Now imagine you couldn't modify those folders and they were the same across every single installation. That's the power of an "immutable" or increasingly often "atomic" OS. You get all your apps from the Software centre and it's a nice experience. Updates happen in the background and apply on restart.
Downsides:
- Nvidia drivers can be a pain. Bazzite sorts it out for you. Open source drivers are being worked on.
- Fractional Scaling is in the works
- HDR is in the works
- VRR is in the works
Bazzite - A gaming focused option with many quality of life improvements. It has a nice "image picker" that automatically includes additional packages recommended for your system (such as Nvidia drivers). Maintained by the community, using Fedora Silverblue as a base, I recommend it over the official version because it's built to avoid the few remaining pitfalls of Linux. In the worst case switching (or "rebase") to the official version is supported.
Bluefin - Bazzite but for developers. It has a cloud-native focus.
Mobile Operating System - Android & iOS ๐
There are Linux distros that run on mobile. They're cool but I very much wouldn't recommend them yet. Compatibility is spotty. Give them a try if you have the inclination.
Ubuntu Touch
Plasma Mobile
postmarketOS
/e/OS - This is the only degoogled Android rom I'm listing here as it allows using your own Nextcloud instance instead of the traditional cloud services (Google Photos, Files etc). It supports a fair few of the most popular phones to varying difficulty of installation.
Email Providers - Gmail, Hotmail etc.
POSTEO ๐ฒ๐ฐ - I've seen them recommended a few times. Super environmentally conscious.
Proton Mail ๐โ - Security focused email with a free option for those who just need the one account.
Mailbox ๐๐ฐ๐ฒ - Uses 100% green energy and is recommended in privacy circles.
Stalwart ๐งโ๐ป๏ธ๐๐ฎ - Self hosted software with the goal of making it viable to run your own mail server.
Email Clients - Gmail App, Outlook
These clients can be used with any email provider. Your email provider may have their own bespoke apps you can use.
Desktop - Linux, Windows, MacOS
Thunderbird ๐โ - Thunderbird is THE open source email client. Made by Mozilla, the makers of Firefox.
Mailspring ๐- Pretty looking email client. It does have a paid tier for more commercial features.
Vivaldi - This browser comes with an email client built-in.
Desktop - Linux Only
Geary ๐- Email client with a Gnome style interface.
Kmail ๐- Email client with a KDE style interface.
Mobile - Android, iOS
I couldn't find any for iOS so either use Apple Mail or if you're lucky your email provider, such as Proton Mail, may have one.
Thunderbird (Currently "K-9 Mail") ๐โถ๏ธ - Thunderbird recently took ownership of an open source app and are developing it under their umbrella.
Fairmail ๐๐โถ๏ธ - Fully featured email client. Neat, intuitive user interface.
Browser - Google Chrome, Safari
The goal here is to move away from Chromium based browsers entirely but barring that just getting away from Google will suffice.
Desktop - Linux, Windows, MacOS
Firefox ๐ - I don't really like vanilla Firefox honestly. It's aight.
LibreWolf ๐๐ - Privacy Focused Firefox
Waterfox ๐๐ - Over the last year regained it's independence from an Ad company. Though not as privacy focused as LibreWolf, it provides lots of customisation options and is working on implementing new features.
Vivaldi โ - In the meantime if none of the Firefox-based alternatives do it for you I highly recommend Vivaldi. The company are solid and have their own Mastodon instance.
Mobile - Android, iOS
I relied on external recommendations for this set of browsers.
Firefox ๐โถ๏ธ๐ - I don't really like vanilla Firefox honestly. It's aight.
Mull ๐โถ๏ธ - This is a privacy oriented and deblobbed web browser based on Firefox.
Cromite ๐โถ๏ธ- Privacy focused Chromium browser with ad-blocking built in. It's technically a fork of Chromium rather than being based on it.
Vivaldi โถ๏ธ๐ - A more mainstream cross-platform option. Blocks ads and syncs between devices.
DuckDuckGo Browser ๐โถ๏ธ๐ - I actually only recommend this for iOS as it loses out to the other privacy centric options on Android.
Kiwi Browser ๐โถ๏ธ - Chromium-based with support for extensions.
Search Engine - Google Search
Ultimately Google Search is bad now anyway for the most part. You're just adding on "reddit" to everything anyway.
If you're interested in where each search engine pulls it's results you can look at this map.
DuckDuckGo ๐ - Search with a Privacy Focus
Startpage ๐ - It piggy backs off of Google but keeps you private
Ecosia ๐ฒ - All profits go towards climate action!
SearXNG ๐๐งโ๐ป๏ธ - It's a self-hosted meta search engine. Which means it piggy backs off of other search engines.
Kagi ๐๐ฐ - Instead of harvesting your data for money they just ask for payment up front. It's a bit expensive (50% off and I'm in).
Instant Messaging - WhatsApp & iMessage ๐
It's so hard to switch I know but it can still be good to know the alternatives. Matrix is an ecosystem built around a protocol of the same name. It's like the Fediverse but for instant messaging.
For a more comprehensive look in privacy terms you can look at this spreadsheet.
Matrix ๐งโ๐ป๏ธ๐โ - Matrix is an open protocol for secure decentralised communications, for our purposes instant messaging. Either use one of many hosted servers or you can host your own Matrix server, I recommend Conduit homeserver personally as it's easy to set up. I bridge Messenger & Discord on my server.
There are quite a few different apps you can use with Matrix, listed below are some of the best:
Beeper - Based on Matrix it brings all your messaging apps into one place. They donate to the Matrix foundation.
Element ๐โ - The vanilla Matrix experience.
Signal ๐ - Fight for privacy.Element ๐โ - The vanilla Matrix experience.
Simplex ๐ - I thought I'd mention it as it's interesting. It does away with user IDs entirely.
Note Taking/Personal Knowledge Management - Notion, Google Keep, Evernote
Obsidian โ - I love it. It's amazing. It's not open source though.
logseq ๐ - I've heard good things. Similar to Obsidian though I've never tried it.
Joplin ๐๐งโ๐ป๏ธ - Collaborative tools and E2EE device sync are its stand out features. Quite different in approach to the alternatives.
Password Management - Google Pass & Lastpass
Lastpass has had a lot of data breaches and aren't trustworthy. Own access to your own passwords.
Bitwarden โ ๐๐ - Best password manager out there and it's free for personal use. I self-host Bitwarden with the Vaultwarden server.
Android App Store
Sideloading other app stores. These are your best options.
F-Droid ๐ - Exclusively for FOSS applications
Droid-ify ๐ - A better looking material and feature-rich frontend to F-Droid
Aurora Store ๐ - A privacy friendly client for accessing the Google Play Store
Period Tracking ๐โ
Privacy is synonymous with ethical in this case for obvious reasons. The options listed below are the only ones that store data locally, have no account requirements and contain no trackers.
Drip ๐ - This has been personally recommended to me. Open Source.
Euki - Closed sourced and it is worth noting though that Euki does link to third parties within the app. Each of which will have its own data collection policies, something to keep in mind.
Specialised Tools ๐
Vector Graphics - Adobe Illustrator, Affinity Designer 2
Inkscape โ - A beautiful example of open source, with an amazing community and development team. Here's a video I enjoyed watching from when the last major update, 1.3, was released last year. 1.4 is around the corner.
Graphite - A new kid. Seems to work in the browser and has node based layers. "Graphite is the first and only graphic design app to offer procedural vector editing."
Graphic Design - Figma, Canva, Affinity Publisher 2
Penpot - I used this when Figma got bought out. It's very nice. 2.0 should be out soon
Photo Editor - Photoshop, Affinity Photo 2
Gimp - The classic photoshop alternative. Still servicable, still ugly. 3.0 is (18) years in the making though and is releasing in the next few months.
Krita โ - One of those super powerful open source tools that trancends its original purpose. It markets itself as more painter focused but secretly rivals photoshop. Apparently if you change the shortcuts to Photoshop's you can barely tell the difference.
Image Processor - Adobe Lightroom
Dartktable - Raw Photo Editing & Colour Correction.
RawTherapee - Look I don't know anything about these things but people love them.
Social Media ๐๐งโ๐ป๏ธ
I'm going to be focusing on Fediverse based apps here. There are smaller centralised services that are ethical too which you are free to ask about in the comments. For everything in this section assume they're ActivityPub compatible.
The Fediverse has it's issues and as such isn't viable for everyone.
Goodreads Alternative
Bookwyrm - It's solid. I don't really hear people complain about anything so I assume it does it's job right. You can import your Goodreads data.
Twitter & Microblogging
There's tons of these and I'm sure to miss some very good ones.
Mastodon - King of the fedi space. I don't actually like it or recommend it. I don't personally find it usable and the worst part is that your posts don't migrate with you. I also don't think the non-profit behind it communicates with the wider fedi community very well.
Mastodon Glitch is worth a mention as a fork because it's very fun and shows the creativity in the Fedi space. There's a doodle function. You can literally paint random drawings directly inside.
Misskey - Very Japanese, in fact there's a massive Japanese art community. Be careful with some of these instances like you would certain anime if you get my meaning. Firefish originally was a westernised fork of this.Sharkey - A mastodon compatible fun little Misskey fork where you can set your profile backround. It's aligned closely with Misskey but more usable for western audiences.
IceShrimp ๐ฎ - A fork of the now mostly dead project Firefish. They're doing a big rewrite of the project at the moment and I'm excited for it.Catodon ๐ฎ - Another fork of Firefish but they've teamed up with IceShrimp for their base. They want to align more with Mastodon than the more wacky Firefish. If they pull it off then I'd recommend this hands down over Mastodon.
GoToSocial - Bare bones fediverse server compatible with Mastodon apps.
So all of these (except Misskey) use the same API and so are compatible with the same mobile apps and alternative browser frontends. I see Tusky for Android, Mammoth for iOS and Phanpy for Web recommended often.
If you really really can't get on with Fedi then give Bluesky a shot. I'm not a fan but it's in theory bridgeable to the Fediverse.
Reddit Alternative
The alternatives currently lack activity in niche topics. The current thinking is that closer integration between communities, instances and other federated reddit alternatives will spark new growth.
Lemmy โ - I use an instance everyday though I don't have an account just to see what's going on. The devs are super communist and have been accused of being Tankies.
Mbin - It's a fork of kbin with a more rapid development cycle. They're actually Twitter and Reddit in one. This is the kind of interesting stuff you can do on the Fediverse
Piefed - Another cool one, it's early on. It's putting an emphasis on healthy communication. One example is adding the ability for authors to press a "I've changed my mind" button in an effort to de-escalate situations. Inspired by this blog post. Era could do with this honestly.
These all implement the Lemmy API and are compatible with the same apps. Mobile devs that couldn't develop for Reddit anymore switched to Lemmy instead such as Boost and Sync. I'm unsure what the best ones are. List
Pixelfed - This thing is genuinely slick. There's not many reason not to use this over Instagram. I think you can import your Instagram data across. Mobile Apps
Youtube
This is a big one. I'm going to recommend a hybrid approach until Peertube really takes off. I also suggest donating to the creators you enjoy and asking for a Peertube mirror.
Peertube - An amazing bit of technology. It's peer to peer Youtube. Peertube does everything right except for a lack of creators. They have a 2024 roadmap that I highly recommend reading. It's focus is on providing features for creators. From a viewer perspective it's not really missing anything. I'd love to be able to use it more.
Bridging Youtube and Peertube in the same app is the only route I foresee to making Peertube successful.
NewPipe [Android] - Combines a few services together in one android app: Youtube, Peertube, Bandcamp, Soundcloud and more. This is the hybrid approach I think we should take.
Grayjay [Android] - Similar to NewPipe
PeerTube Companion - A browser extension only for Firefox sadly that redirects certain Youtube videos to its Peertube version instead.
There are no iOS or Android TV apps as yet. Though the non-profit behind peertube is working to make official apps.
Discord - None of these are Fediverse
I don't think any of these are viable as alternatives to be honest but it's worth a look.
Revolt - Don't know much about it. I have spoken with the devs before but I personally feel they're reinventing the wheel. No federation is a bad choice in my book.
Spacebar - Free and open source, full stack reverse engineering and re-implementation of Discord. This is more acceptable to me as it's literally just meant to be self-hostable Discord.
Matrix - Same stuff as in the instant messaging section. It often gets mentioned but it's only a somewhat viable alternative. If you only use it for chat then the Discord bridge works really well but takes some set up. I recommend the in development Commet app if you want the Discord experience.
Commune - It's aiming to be the de-facto fediverse discord alternative. It builds on Matrix and combines with ActivityPub to get the best of both worlds. It's early in development but it's a very interesting idea.
OTHER LISTS & GUIDES
For people focused on privacy you can view this amazing guide for recommendations and knowledge.
If there's anything else you need you can't go wrong with open source: opensourcealternative.to.
Lemmy Post on Android FOSS Apps.
CHANGELOG
2024-02-20 - Init
2024-02-28 - Added Bluefin as a developer focused version of Bazzite
2024-03-01 - Grouped the Matrix clients for Instant Messaging and gave a bit more info about Matrix.
2024-03-02 - Added Mobile Browsers and Android FOSS Apps List.
2024-03-03 - Added email clients. I also made some styling changes to include desktop and mobile clients under the same header.
2024-03-20 - Added Kiwi Browser for android mobile. Added Joplin for note taking.
2024-03-25 - Removed Floorp and Kiwi Browser, Added Waterfox
2024-03-26 - Added Specialised Tools section with Vector Graphics, Graphic Design, Image Processing and Photo Editing tools.
2024-05-10 - Re-added Kiwi Browser after further research.
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