Argh! I’ve posted a similar question; basically, I want a private alternative to Facebook, with wall-like functionality. The second minimum requirement is that there be an iOS app that makes posting easy – including initiating a picture or video capture. So:

• #1: private, b/c it’s family sharing toddler pictures
• Also #1: super user friendly, because (100% - 1 person) involved are non-technical
• Also #1: has to have a better user tool than an SPA. No web interface can ever be anywhere as good as a native app can be, and I will die on that hill.
• #2: emoji reactions, and threaded comments

I’m not interested in installing and evaluating a dozen different servers, so like you I’ve been hoping that people with similar goals would narrow down the field a bit. There’s no way I’d convince enough of the family to go along with evaluating all of the options anyway, and IME what works fine for me can often fall apart when other people come onboard.

I’d convinced myself that Friendica – venerable, proven, reasonably popular – would fit the bill, especially because the design doesn’t assume public-by-default, like Mastodon or Lemmy, and the potential damage of exposed content, either through my misconfiguring the server, or some upgrade assuming users want everything public by default, is high. I’d prefer a project where the developers assume private-by-default, and invite-first. Lemmy isn’t really right, because we’re following people, not communities; Mastodon has a better model, following users, but then its conversation threading is kind of shit for this purpose, and its reaction feature set is anemic. Circles was perfect, and beloved by the key parent involved, until it first made half of her posts invisible to her (and only to her and her husband), and then locked her out. This doesn’t surprise me much, as Circles is based on Matrix, which frankly has the worst cryptography management I’ve even encountered. But if you’re saying Friendica is that painful to post media on, then it won’t work.

I’m leery of Humhub because of the quasi-commercial nature, and its youth. I’ve had too many experiences with initially semi-commercial platforms shifting, either suddenly or slowly, to increasingly commercial positions – moving features from the “free” to the “paid” column. Vendor lock-in is a real issue with a dozen users.

So if Friendica is out, maybe Pixelfed? It seemed to me to be mostly indistinguishable from Mastodon, but if they have better comment threading, reactions, and I need to re-evaluate the AP clients to see if any would be user-friendly enough for the parents. I’ve used mostly Fedilab, and I’m not sure it’s ideal. For one thing, it doesn’t have support more than basic reactions: you can boost or favorite, but I am – and I think you are probably – looking for something with more variety, like emoji responses, right?

I’m watching the other reactions here, and my post on this topic is here. I may post a summary – there are comparison charts, but they all tend to focus on feature set and fall short on the overall use case. On my thread,

• Misskey was recommended as Facebook-like, and in particular, some of its forks have features the core project is missing. I always got the impression Misskey was a Mastodon-analog, which would make it not a good fit, so I’ve skipped over it. With Friendica out, I’m going to put Misskey back on the “possible” list.
• Diaspora has also been recommended and is near the top of my list.
• Smithereen was recommended, but the sparsity of the documentation – not even a list of features – put it down low on my list.
• Hubzilla has a lot of documentation; it focuses a lot on content management – assets, calendars, document sharing, etc. – which will be fine if “easily post content to a feed” and “follow a user and view a stream of their posts” is a first-class interaction model.
• Pixelfed is still an option. I just need to confirm/refute my “Mastodon, with pictures” perception. If my perception has been skewed by the fact that I’m interacting with Pixelfed through a (mainly) Mastodon app, then maybe it’ll work. However, there isn’t AFAICT a Pixelfed app, so if the only way to get to a more wall-like view is through a web interface, it’s not going to work.

@[email protected] is also looking for this feature set / use case. I kind of feel as if it’s more useful to think about this as a use case, because almost all of these projects can claim some or all of the requested features, and yet not satisfy what we’re looking for in terms of user experience. This would be a great opportunity for another tool: a wiki with a list of applications & features, but with a discussion section and focused on winnowing projects by consensus about suitability. Again, lots of software that have the necessary functionality and which could be wrangled to do this, but still fail to be a good tool for the objective.

Edit

Probably not the best place to do this, because I’m the only one who can edit this, but:

Project	Suitability: Reason	Note
Misskey (core)	No: privacy	No authorized fetch
Catodon (Misskey fork)	Maybe: privacy	Public-first. Can users declare invite-only viewing of content, by default?
diaspora*	Maybe: model	Stream-based, not wall-based. Users see all posts available to them, not all posts made by a followed user.
Hubzilla	Probably: privacy	Channel based (walls could be simulated with channels), but visibility is declared at post level, increasing risk of accidentally exposing content.
Pixelfed	Maybe: features	Albums could simulate walls; threaded comments; limited reactions (“likes”, but no emojis). Mobile apps are beta and limited access.

I’ll go find a collaborative, wiki-like document thing with discussions that isn’t G**gle.

Edit 2

The table is now here, as a CryptPad document. In an exercise of trust, it’s open to edits. If vandals wreak too much damage, I’ll restrict access, but that’ll require creating accounts and requesting access, and all that shiz.