I need a Facebook replacement
I need a Facebook replacement
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?
Mewe
I'm going to tell you my core problem, just to get some feedback/vent a little: i've wanted to end my Facebook account since Cambridge Analytica. I hate the feed. But Facebook has one key thing keeping me locked in at the moment - Events.
Back in the pre and early Facebook stages, there were websites that had well-curated, broadish event calendars for my city. These are now universally dead. Websites dedicated to the local music scene? Also pretty much dead (RIP punkottawa.com). Some have tried to get something going independently in later stages, but all have failed. Even my favourite college radio station, which has folks super tied into the community and local music scene and plug stuff on the air frequently, has pretty much abandoned their community events calendar. The problem gets worse if I'm travelling outside of the city, in that I have no clue where to even start looking effectively outside of Facebook (@ me, Montrealers and Torontonians in particular). Stuff like bandsintown is ok, but misses a lot when you're more into bar gigs than concerts
I've yet to find a non-Facebook approach that captures events I'd be interested in that doesn't miss something. RSS feeds from websites for known gig spaces (either natively or with a web2rss thing) can get part of the way there, but there's been cases of stuff happening at new/unexpected venues (a hot sauce store here, at some point, became a gig venue) that I've only found out about via Facebook. And this ignoring non-music related stuff that occasionally comes up serendipitously.
I've yet to come up with a great solution, and that kinda ticks me off.
There's absolutely a need for a public space for friends, businesses, venues, city halls, journalists, et al to congregate. It used to be a literal town hall, radio, newspapers, and weekly periodicals. And then AOL, MySpace, Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. All of these need some sort of funding to operate efficiently - either by tax payers, subscriptions, or advertising. This need for funding is what screws everything up.
There also used to be a time when Instagram was relevant. Then they introduced the algorithmic timeline, which meant I wouldn't see event announcements for days after they occurred. Advertisers want results so engagement is more important than informing the public. If someone finds what they want at the top of their feed and clicks out of the app, that's less opportunity to show ads.
Twitter used to be the best way to find out what was happening in real time in my immediate vicinity. Places stopped posting on there, the algorithm took over, then you know who took over. I'm hopeful about Bluesky but I'm not sure how they're paying the bills.
This might not cover all the venues but you might be able to find booking agents with newsletters you can subscribe to. Promoting concerts should be one of those things where venues are desperate to use all sorts of platforms to get people in the door. Local radio stations are usually pretty good at promoting smaller shows on their websites too. My local newspaper is actually one of my best resources for discovering new venues and pop ups.
One of my local breweries was publishing an rss calendar feed for their weekly events. This was awesome until their "subscription" expired at the end of the year (not sure why they don't just have a google calendar). I should speak with the owner to see what her reasoning was. My suspicion is that they want to track engagement on Instagram and the newsletters.
On the other hand, we have the essentially donation-funded fediverse. I've been wanting to see servers pop up to host certain things. For example, something like montreal-gov.social and montreal-shows.social where there's dedicated federated instances for public congregation. I'm not sure if there's a calendar function in the fediverse but it would seem reasonable to invest effort in. I'm really hoping this is the direction we're going in. It just makes a lot of sense.
I wish that gained some traction.
I also wish it had a name that is easy to intuit a pronunciation.
Thanks Blaze! This looks really interesting. Network effect is a factor in what I'm bitching about, but we've got OK enough general fediverse participation where I am that this could be/get real useful for me.
Appreciate it, and what you do to promote fediverse stuff in general. Said it before and I'll say it again - you're doing good work.
The problem is that Facebook isn't just about keeping up with your friends and family. It's an engagement platform designed to keep your attention by showing you memes and "news" and videos and ads that it knows you like. Most people have become addicted to this slow and steady stream of dopamine. You're not going to get people off their crack addiction by substituting it with marijuana.
As these social platforms become more powerful, it's up to each of us to personally find the strength to wean ourselves away from these platforms that once promised socialization but have quickly become little more than propaganda and influencing and ad-serving machines.
It's great we're seeing some alternatives but, aside from a small cohort, most people are not going to find the likes of Bluesky, Mastodon, or Lemmy engaging enough to give them that hit that they're used to.
All hail the algorithm.
Personally, I used to be the early adopter who was on all these platforms well before most of the public heard about them. In recent years, I've either deleted or stopped using my social accounts (or have chosen to use less engaging ones, like Lemmy). This has given me more time to live a life.
Boredom is something I embrace. Rather than turning to a screen to occupy me; I'll take a nap, make some tea, journal, go for a walk, do some cleaning, build something, practice something, read a book or comic. It's not as dynamic, for sure, but I get to experience and learn more about myself instead of needlessly observing the lives of others. Boredom offers a renewed sense of self and humanity. Frankly, I'm afraid younger generations won't know what benefits and beauty boredom has to offer.
Best would probably be if I quit social media. I find arguing on Facebook, Reddit and Lemmy very addictive.
However, I prefer it if my local boomers are on a slightly addictive but open and transparent social media, which isn't controlled by an oligarch or random orange fascist.
I want something that is so similar to Facebook, that I basically can post a link on Facebook and when the boomer follow that link they'll effortlessly create a new account and start using the fediverse FB clone, because that's where I'll post my content from now on.
You are on Lemmy and you are leaving Facebook, you don't need anything else, you've got everything already.
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, it uses its own protocol, so i'm not sure if it can federate with software that uses activitypub.
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.
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 :)
Thanks! Yeah, I realized Pleroma isn't what I was looking for.
Facebook Marketplace is my favorite part of Facebook. Thoughts about what might replace that?
Work in progress: https://codeberg.org/flohmarkt/flohmarkt
Same here. A fediverse alternative seems like a no brainer. Weird if there are no commercial apps already.. Probably an easy way to get VC.
Mercuri seems to be becoming more popular
Right up until it asks for ID, which you have to use the app for, and even if you send it nothing happens and your account remains disabled.
Ask me how I know. And that was for my very first purchase.
If they're on facebook, they prolly want something as close to facebook as possible, and the only one I can think of is Nextdoor. Only problem is it's mostly 50 year olds complaining about their neighboorhods's minor problems or local contractors advertising themselves over and over again. Other than that, it's pretty much facebook tit for tat without the zucc. But they got easy invite links so we could prolly change it for the better, even if that's a massive pipedream
Only problem is it's mostly 50 year olds complaining about their neighboorhods's minor problems or local contractors advertising themselves over and over again.
This is basically what I'm looking for. For me its not a problem. Most of the active people on Facebook are boomers. And that's also the biggest reason why I've been "forced" to use Facebook. And also because it's been the default communication platform of all local communities I've been part of.
I haven't really been using it but I wanted to throw a shoutout to https://spacehey.com/
Thanks, but it looks a little bit too old school and low budget. These are not people looking for a retro feel or extra privacy. They want something that look and feel like FB.
Wow looks like old Myspace.
Like people already wrote, FB is not used anymore to share your vacation and see your friends food plates. Me and about everybody around me are using FB for Marketplace (big here, about the only platform used to buy/sell), and for all kind of groups, being for hobbies like RC cars, Astronomy, Funko Pop, RVing, Painting, Costco, whatever, etc.
I have not posted a pic or a thought on FB for years, nor really read something from my hundred friends there in my FB feed, but I go there about everyday to browse my groups.
It's not as good as old forums about your car brand/model etc, but it is happening there now.
If you want to replace FB for friends/family/picture/events, no clue, maybe IG lol
I'll admit, the buzz around FB Marketplace has tempted me to sign up again. Mostly because ebay fees are insane. I've resorted to either putting things out for free pickup or using hobby-specific websites with buy/sell forums. Plus the occasional sidewalk sale. Life existed before Facebook. It was a slower life. So, just have to be more patient sometimes.
Just don't use Facebook. Get your friends contact information and text/call/meme directly with them or in groups. You'll find it a much more encouraging and rewarding experience if you connect with people instead of let some big company tell you how to engage with your friends and family.
Edit: I did not expect this thread to be so controversial. I suspect a lot of people really are not ready to give up Facebook.
That's what they're doing, though? They're leaving facebook, and looking for an corpoless alternative.
You'll find it a much more encouraging and rewarding experience if you connect with people instead
And you’ll find that a lot of your so-called “friends” won’t include you in any activities if it means they have to contact you separately via other means.
OfferUp is really the only FBM replacement out there. I’m just assuming that’s 1/2 of what keeps most people around. The other being that messenger, in spite of its complete lack of privacy, still hosts the largest bulk of people, for finding acquaintances and such if needed.
Signal or WIRE should be the obvious replacement for the latter but our Congress working efficiently and effectively for the people is an easier task than moving a single individual off messenger and into Signal or WIRE. You’ll probably have to no contact people on text to get them to switch.
Can't access OfferUp because I'm not in the US. What's special about it? Is it on fediverse?
In Sweden, the most popular alternatives to FBM are Blocket and Tradera/ebay. But they're all commercial and not on fediverse.
What do you think of Matrix based messaging apps? Seems like a better alternative to Signal and Wire. Depending on what server you're using.
Facebook's selling point is that your friends are already on it. If you want to convince random people, you have to show them what they'll be joining.
By that measure, there is no fediverse equivalent. You might be able to convince your friends to join for their favorite content creators, but if anything they're probably on Mastodon.
Facebook's selling point is that your friends are already on it. If you want to convince random people, you have to show them what they'll be joining.
Well, that's why I'm asking.
I need
No you don’t
What do you hope to gain from leaving one Facebook to join another Facebook? Break the addiction. Free yourself from needing this in your life.
A social media platform to keep up with friends/family, while arguable not great (for comparison reasons), it not at all the same as what Facebook is right now. Facebook is no longer what it was originally created to be, it is just a dopamine slow drip.