I plan to end my Facebook account before January 19. I like the format and would like something similar in the Fediverse. Also, I need a good Facebook alternative I can show people when trying to convince them to leave Facebook.

So what is the best Facebook alternative as of 2025? Frendica, Diaspora or Pleroma? Or something new and promising?

  • fxomtEnglish
    29•29 days ago

    Friendica is probably the best choice. It’s the most popular with the most servers and users, and is explicitly designed to be like facebook, and uses Activitypub.

    Pleroma, judging from the FAQ; strives to be more like twitter. And as for diaspora, I don’t know much at all about it.

    • @[email protected]English
      7•1 month ago

      The issue is going to be: what are my friends already using? Can I find and friend all my new acquaintances on this platform?

      It’s not so much whether or not it has the capacity to be a great service, it’s what is the current population on the service? That’s what people are really asking.

      If there’s not millions on it already, most are going to pass on it.

      We’re on Lemmy, that puts us a bit outside of that perspective, but that’s still going to be your fat middle of the bell curve on peoples willingness to move.

      • fxomtEnglish
        11•1 month ago

        That’s generally how all services start out, though. It sucks, but you can’t just wait for a platform to get big, you have to actually use it, you have to be the change you want to see.

        A big advantage of federation too is that all platforms can interact with eachother; a user on mastodon can interact with this post on lemmy, an iceshrimp user can interact with users on bonfire; etc etc. Platforms on the fediverse have the advantage of not needing to start from scratch.

        And, there is nothing stopping them from using facebook alongside friendica, i use redlib when lemmy doesn’t have a community i’m interested in, for example (although i definitely main on lemmy). we don’t have to completely stop from using a platform, both is fine :)

      • mesamuneEnglish
        2•1 month ago

        Maybe blue sky? I’ve seen quite a few family/friends move lately and it’s made subscribing to them via mastodon/mastodon adjacent like GoToSocial workable.

      • fxomtEnglish
        5•1 month ago

        Friendica is compatible with mastodon’s api, so you can use the mastodon app. That’s the only way i think of on iOS :/

        You can also use the website as a PWA, safari has partial PWA support

        • mesamuneEnglish
          4•1 month ago

          It’s so cool that in the fedi you have quite a few options for front ends/phone apps. Unlike other websites that charge for outside access.

    • Cătă
      1•29 days ago

      @fxomt

      And as for diaspora, it uses its own protocol, so i’m not sure if it can federate with software that uses activitypub.

      It does federate. With Friendica, lol (because it also uses their protocol though).

      @sith

      • fxomtEnglish
        1•29 days ago

        Ah, my mistake. I’ll edit it out

        • Cătă
          1•29 days ago

          @fxomt No worries. Thing is, on a serious note, that it doesn’t federate with Friendica, but rather Friendica federates with it (through diaspora’s own protocol). That means that you can follow Mastodon accounts along with diaspora accounts on Friendica, but you cannot follow Mastodon accounts on Diaspora (nor vice-versa). So if you want to keep tabs with the world, Friendica is the better option.