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2025-02-07 10:26:57

Christian via caos

chris@social.uggs.io

So what are you guys using for Facebook Alternatives (self-hosted, open-source, federated)?

#selfhosted #selfhosting #opensource #linux #federation #mastodon #friendica #diaspora

show all 12 comments

2025-02-07 10:33:38

Ronald

ronald@ohai.social

@chris did you try #openvibe?

2025-02-07 10:35:39

Skyper 💻🎧☕📖

Skyper@fosstodon.org

@chris Funny enough, your question was side-by-side with https://mastodon.social/@_elena/113961877854327032 in my feed 😄

2025-02-07 10:37:17

mkj

mkj@social.mkj.earth

@chris Friendica does seem to be the go-to alternative if you want something similar to Facebook.

2025-02-07 10:37:58

Andreas Kilgus

musenhain@friendica.andreaskilgus.de

@Christian Friendica.

2025-02-07 10:39:08

Chris McMahon

dadmin2@mastodon.social-pod.org

@chris I've tried:

Diaspora* - Looks OK but doesn't easily federate with anything and with a fairly low user count it was difficult to find people with similar interests.

Friendica - Looks nice and as it's part of the Fediverse it's got a lot more content. I tried to self-host it but failed miserably. I fully accept that might have been me doing something wrong but I tried to follow the instructions exactly numerous times.

1/n

2025-02-07 10:43:26

Chris McMahon

dadmin2@mastodon.social-pod.org

@chris

Hubzilla - Similar in ways to Friendica (original Friendica developer left to create Hubzilla). I successfully created my own Hubzilla server but don't use it much because I wasn't sure what it was really offering me over other federated clients.

Mastodon - Seems to be the 'big' name in the Fediverse. Plenty of content to find, but (IMO) not reached critical mass as I find it difficult to find people with smiilar interests. I've got my own Mastodon server so self-hosting works.

2/n

2025-02-07 10:46:49

Chris McMahon

dadmin2@mastodon.social-pod.org

@chris

Bluesky - Not part of the Fediverse, but has a rapidly growing user population. I've found a lot of people with similar interests and have my own self-hosted PDS.

3/n

2025-02-07 10:49:12

Chris McMahon

dadmin2@mastodon.social-pod.org

@chris

The problem with all of these are that they're not Facebook alternatives. They're really micro-blogging, so as long as you don't mind telling your story in 300/500 character chunks and maybe being limited to just a few photos, then they kind of work.

The biggest problem is that your family and friends almost certainly aren't using any of these, so if you're using Facebook in that way then none are a real alternative.

4/4

2025-02-07 10:50:00

Lycoris

Lycoris@retro.pizza

@chris I don’t personally use it, but as a “Facebook alternative” I see Friendica being praised a lot. Might be worth looking into.

Edit since seeing one of your other comments: this is not really microblogging with character limits being able to be raised to 200k characters I would say. It also seems to have most of facebooks core functionality. (Friends, chat groups, dms etc.)

2025-02-07 11:58:29

Antoine

villapirorum@indieweb.social

@chris

I would have *really* liked to try friendica.
I love Mastodon but miss FB Events (still the main agenda for many artists or concert venues...)

I'm a tech guy, I know what instances are etc.
So not technical barrier. But...

2025-02-07 11:59:22

Zło To

mattesilver@101010.pl

@chris I don't use it, but there's friendica

2025-02-07 15:43:16

caos

caos@anonsys.net

@Christian Without knowing Facebook, I would also say that #Friendica can be described as an alternative. But it is probably both less and more than that.

Here are some insights into Friendica :
Slides "Friendica, Under the radar since 2010" (FOSDEM 2025) by @Tobias
video series "Friendica tutorial Pt 1 of 6: Explaining Friendica/Facebook comparisons and how to join." by @anubis2814
Blog "The Future of Social is Here: a Show and Tell (part 3: Friendica)" by @Elena Rossini ⁂
Blog "When to use Friendica over Mastodon" by @Greenpepper