Rebel Tech AllianceReddit alternatives
Reddit has been the best way to go deep on a topic and get real help for many years now.
The main reason to get away from big tech (billionaire owned) social media is that the content you are served is decided by an algorithm. And how that algorithm works (e.g. skewed towards more shocking, more extreme, less true, more outrageous) is at the whim of the owner of the platform. You are open to manipulation.
The solution is decentralised
To avoid algorithmic lock-in, move to a decentralised, open source alternative from the list below. Decentralised means that there is no central control point that dictates what content you see (unlike X).
Decentralised social networks run on a set of shared format rules called a 'protocol'. The two main decentralised protocols are ActivityPub and ATproto. Apps built on ActivityPub are sometimes referred to as the fediverse because all those apps are 'federated'. This means you can see posts in one app that are posted in another app.
All the following are decentralised and open source:
| App name | Protocol | Best Features | # users start of 2025 approx | Year started | Country of Origin | Link |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Lemmy | ActivityPub | Hundreds of communities (topics); Ad free; Similar layout to Reddit | 500,000 | 2019 | n/a decentralised | Join Lemmy |
| Mbin | ActivityPub | Different layout to Lemmy: includes feed view as well as link threads; Ad free; Federated with other fediverse apps like Lemmy and Mastodon | 7,000 | 2019 | n/a decentralised | Join Mbin |
RTA's choice
We use Lemmy. It is a fully featured reddit alt and we recommend it. Being on the ActivityPub protocol it has the advantage of being federated with all the other AP apps like Mastodon, Pixelfed, Peertube and Friendica.
Why the name? The founder says that they wanted to carry on the tradition of using animal names for fediverse apps, and the rock band frontman Lemmy had just died that week, and the founder was playing the vintage video game Lemmings at the time.... 🤷🏼
How decentralised social media networks work
They are made up of lots of separate 'instances'. These could be though of like hosting servers (like for websites). There is always the original and biggest instance set up by the founders, and then lots of smaller onces set up by various other people. To start with you usually join the 'original' instance, and usually this has a name ending in '.social'.
In Lemmy's case, though, it is lemmy.world. Other instances, listed here, are centred around geographical regions or topics.