Twitter/X vs Nostr vs Mastodon vs Bluesky vs Threads vs Tumblr

I liked Twitter. News, politics, artists, memes, controversial thoughts that people discuss longer than it deserves. That Twitter wasn’t what X is now. Verification doesn’t mean anything, it’s just an algorithm boost everybody can buy. Crowds of bots leave random overcompressed jpegs in replies to get more attention to get more money for its owner. Somehow it’s normal there to want entire nation dead.

I wish it was easy to leave, but it still has hundreds of millions active users. It still has all the memes we like, the controversial thoughts people discuss too much, all the big companies and politicians have to have an account.

I checked out the biggest alternatives to decide where to go. No complicated tech terms ahead, I looked at them as a regular user who just wants to have fun.

TL;DR: Twitter/X is still the most effective and active platform, but if you really want to change it you should take part in transition to another platform and not wait for more people to be there.

Nostr

Decentralized, censorship resistant due to its nature. Of course, it’s not perfect and is quite far from reaching its true potential. Out of all the alternatives, Nostr might have the most complicated registration. Do regular users really need to think about public and private keys? Yes, yes, I get it — users have to keep in mind their privacy if they want to have it. But you have to read at least something to understand what you’re doing, which is automatically more difficult than simply press “Sign up”. And then you have to choose between web clients… And then Android/iOS clients… And some of them might be buggy on your device, so you switch to another client… The flow could be better, but Nostr is a new social network, it keeps improving every day.

After all this, you open an app and see… Bitcoins, AI images, jokes about Elon Musk. And some anarchists. 90% of what you see is people praising Bitcoin. The universal social network protocol turns out to has a pretty narrow view. I guess, the feature of attaching your cryptocurrency wallet made it extremely popular amongst Bitcoiners, but why is it the biggest — and probably the only — community there?

How does one find another community? Hashtags don’t seem to work, perhaps because of tiny size of non-Bitcoin communities. Trending is all Bitcoin. I didn’t even know it’s possible to discuss something that long.

It’s close to being decentralized and censorship resistant; you can write and read Twitter-like notes or long posts — whatever you like! But I don’t feel comfortable because I’m an alien without a Bitcoin wallet here. It could be a great place for everybody, but now it lacks diversity. It may not even want to be universal. Maybe it’s the Bitcoin network and that’s fine.

Mastodon

Decentralized, not so censorship resistant but way better than having everything on one company’s servers. 500 symbols per post is more than Twitter, but less than long format, it’s somewhere in-between. It literally has no feed algorithm, so you have to find people and hashtags you want to follow, and Mastodon won’t help. You don’t know what it has in the first place? Bad for you.

Sooner or later your feed start to look like one you’re actually want to read. And that’s when I started to like Mastodon. The UI is neat, everything is in its place and works as expected — you can tell the social network has been here for a while. There are more than 10 million users as of 2023, and it still grows slowly. Mastodon is mature but fresh, and it does scare you away at first glance. Every discussion is serious for some reason, and I’m yet to discover meme accounts to follow. Mastodon is probably the only decentralized social network on this list which has at least some officials registered here.

Bluesky

If you want to move back in time to see the old Twitter again — take a look at Bluesky. Everything is literally the same as Twitter, and it actually might be both a blessing and a curse. It seems to lack its identity and feels not like something new, but like uninhabited, decentralized Twitter.

There is a feed algorithm that shows you a mix of viral and recent posts, so you don’t have a desert feeling (which sometimes occurs in Mastodon). Bluesky was launched in open access to the public in February 2024 and has reached 10 millions already. There is nothing serious about it — memes, shitposts, random thoughts put in 300 symbols. People barely use hashtags here, one would probably find something interesting or funny just scrolling the feed.

Threads

It’s weird and soulless. You can’t create a Threads account without an Instagram one, so you have to use both while Meta collects a huge amount of data about you. It just doesn’t feel great.

You can’t ignore the power of a big corporation — the experience is smooth, the UI is nice, and I personally like the little curl every thread has. And what do you see scrolling the feed? AI images and ridiculously serious inspirational quotes with a beach at the background. They’re all different, but none of them makes sense. Do people actually discuss something? Not really. You just post pretty images just like you did on Instagram. And those are beautiful, you can’t take that from Instagram userbase, so your feed looks absolutely incredible. And empty. There is nothing wild — no hot takes, no fresh jokes, everything is sterile and correct. It feels dead despite having over 175 million monthly active users.

Tumblr

Yeah, yeah, I know, but hear me out. Tumblr looks interesting for creative communities where people have fun. It goes from the cringiest actor gifs to a detailed book subplot analysis. Your posts don’t disappear in the void thanks to hashtag search. There is also a feed algorithm to spend time. If you’re really into discussing weirdest story and fanfiction ideas, that’s the default social network for you.

But.

It’s also owned by a company that can do everything it wants. And it actually did.

Conclusion

There is no perfect platform to move to. If one of them had a clear advantage and/or a big userbase, many people would move there with no hesitation. But the situation is different, there is no obvious preferable social network to stick with. The vast majority stays on X trying to ignore the weird stuff. If we really want to have better and safer social networks, we should encourage competition and migration. All the X alternatives lack communities people would like to join, whereas it should be friendly and welcoming to all. Not the criminals, obviously.

My personal favorite is Nostr, but right now Mastodon seems the most convenient option.

P.S. Sorry for mistakes, English is not my native language. This post is not supposed to be some serious analysis, it’s just another internet rant.