r/RedditAlternatives • u/greenlamb • Jun 09 '23

Squabbles.io is a great for those of us who just want a simple and easy Reddit alternative

https://squabbles.io/

Pitch: A hybrid of Twitter and Reddit. Follow people you find interesting, and have great in-depth conversations.

Pros:

  • Clean UI
  • Very responsive dev (removed signup requirement 2 hours after someone complained about it)
  • Easy to sign up (email optional)
  • Not as complicated as decentralized alternatives like Lemmy/Mastadon
  • Great threaded commenting
  • Image & video links have previews (avoids self-hosted media and the avalanche of usability problems that comes with it)

Cons:

  • Not decentralized
    • (but TBH is probably not a big dealbreaker for those of us who just want a simple solution)
  • Communities (aka subreddits) can only be setup by the dev
    • Probably a good idea for now, don't want it to go wild
    • Dev is currently doing new community requests and setup right now!

Disclaimer: I am not affiliated with this site, just found it from this subreddit and thought it deserves more attention.

23-Jun-2023 Addendum

There's been major improvements at breakneck speed since this post was made 14 days ago:

  • users can create up to 3 communities (subreddits) and moderate up to 5. (NO POWER MODS)
  • 5 third party apps are in progress, including 2 that are currently in beta
  • comments on posts are now compacted after the first few, with the option to expand, giving less of a bloated feel.
  • Native image hosting
  • Subscription list now easier to get to
  • sorting feeds by hot/new (dev frequently asks how the algorithm for hot feels)
  • dark mode enabled
  • new types of feeds (Home (your subscriptions), All, People (self-posts))

As you can see, the dev is still very responsive to community feedback and is pushing out updates really fast.

Last but not least, some data, because I like visualizations:

Daily engagement check of Reddit alts (June 11-13)

Source: https://squabbles.io/u/AgentNeo/post/XMwyeYQwRk

Caveats: informal sampling over 30 mins

r/RedditAlternatives informal poll

Source: https://www.reddit.com/r/RedditAlternatives/comments/148ijlw/lets_try_a_poll/

Caveats: Reddit post didn't have much upvotes so might not be representative

396 Upvotes
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97% Upvoted

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33

u/busymom0 Jun 09 '23 edited Jun 20 '23

I am the developer of HACK, hacker news app for iOS, android and MacOS, one of the top hacker news apps on the app stores. I have been working on a decentralized link + text sharing site called AvocadoReader LimeReader for last few weeks. I describe it as a "Decentralized public community of communities for sharing links, text and media. "

I am hoping to have an extremely early beta next week. Here's what I have so far. Got the post submissions and community creations working:

https://imgur.com/a/mim2X9H

Description of my site: https://limereader.com/

I shared some implementation details here if people want to read more:

https://old.reddit.com/r/apolloapp/comments/13x0hzo/been_working_on_this_decentralized_reddit

Mind commenting on my UI?

11

u/Plinythemelder Jun 09 '23 edited Nov 12 '24

Deleted due to coordinated mass brigading and reporting efforts by the ADL.

This post was mass deleted and anonymized with Redact

1

u/Yellowbrickrailroad Jun 12 '23

Try squabbles.io

I'm loving it so far

5

u/TheKingOfWerms Jun 10 '23

Very solid direction, good stuff

2

u/halodecaboranes Jun 09 '23

Legit super excited to use this - looking forward to when it launches!

1

u/iconredesign Jun 10 '23

Would love if the sub-header controls and post details descend into its own line for clarity, but other than that I like it

1

u/busymom0 Jun 10 '23

Can you give more details? I am not understanding what you mean.

1

u/RaptorX Jun 11 '23

He is referring to the post actions to the right (save, hide etc)

Its better to have them on their own line to know they are there (i missed them on first glance, wouldn't have noticed if not because of this comment) and probably make them a contrasting color or at least different from other text.

1

u/busymom0 Jun 11 '23

Ah, I understand that now. I will make some changes to that. Thanks.

1

u/MoonStache Jun 15 '23

Happy to get in on as a beta tester if needed. Personally my "model" for a mobile reddit-like experience is based on Relay. I don't hate the UI you've got there but would love to see things like image thumbnails on the right and the ability to preview images, GIFs, etc from the feed. I could stand a bit more of a line between each post too but maybe it's just my panel being a bit washed out.

1

u/busymom0 Jun 15 '23

The site will be hyper customizable. That’s how I do it with my hacker news app HACK too. Just trying to get the core functionality working to.

I add the ability to preview text, images, gifs etc from the feed. The screenshots above are outdated now lol

Right now, I have a brief description of the site. Hoping to have a beta very soon.

You can check out the description here:

https://limereader.com/

2

u/M_G Jun 20 '23

Excited to sign up ASAP!

1

u/RenegadeUK Jun 20 '23

Where can I find more info on HACK kindly and good luck with Lime Reader.

1

u/busymom0 Jun 20 '23

You can find more info about lime reader here and at the bottom, you can also find a link to my HACK hacker news app:

https://limereader.com/