I started my fediverse journey with Mastodon, the most popular fediverse / ActivityPub software out there. First I joined a public instance, then I temporarily hosted my own instance, forgot about the fediverse, joined again on a public instance some months later and eventually settled with my own Pleroma instance, which is now running for almost a year.
But why shouldn’t I take a look at other options too?
Some months ago, I briefly tried Microblog.pub and although I deleted my instance after a short test, I installed it again and now plan to move over to it as my primary fediverse identity.
Why?
There are a couple of reasons I like it more than Pleroma (this isn’t saying I don’t like Pleroma, Pleroma is awesome!):
- Static frontend: No JavaScript bullshit, loads even quickly via a slow internet connection in German trains. Anyone who has ever tried “WifiOnICE” knows what I’m talking about.
- Clean frontend: Microblog.pub is definitely more KISS than Mastodon and Pleroma and I’m more the minimalistic guy and prefer a clean and simple interface over an interface with hundreds of options, styles and graphics.
- Simpler setup: Microblog.pub is generally easier to install, update and maintain, because it has less options, is build with containers in mind and to update a configuration, I just need to edit a file that’s mounted into the container and don’t need to rebuild the whole image.
Another bonus: I missed a feature that allows me to see replies from people I follow to other people’s posts in my stream. I posted about it and the next day I had that feature because the maintainer, Thomas Sileo implemented it. I don’t pay anything for this software, but this support is amazing! (If I get more familiar with the code base I will try to contribute something back!)
Of course Microblog.pub has some things, I would have done differently too, like using Python and MongoDB, but it’s something I’m willing to accept. 😄 Thomas Sileo definitely had reasons to choose Python over Go or MongoDB over Postgres. If I had a lot of free time and would be bored, I would rewrite the app, but I miss time, knowledge about ActivityPub and motivation to spend my nights coding, so I’m using the existing solution. It’s still awesome!