(advice) good working social media app (En et Fr)

(version Fr ci-dessous)

Hi,

In short, which social media app is working really well at the moment?

I have been using Yunohost for a while and I’m very happy with it, so many thanks to you all. I have a few good working apps but am planning on upgrading my hardware setup so I can do more. One of the things I want to do is host a social media server for my friends, preferably something within the fediverse. Yet, when doing my due diligence checking the current apps I found out that almost all of them have significant open issues. e.g. my first choice was pixelfed since a native client is now available in android. However, since 2023 there is an open issue in github which says that uploads fail due to an issue with file permissions. On the forum here people report it failing for them with new updates etc. I previously wanted to do Movim, which also failed since it is not maintained anymore (which was a previous question of mine). Friendica has also an open issue when installing the app etc.

I am aware that the fact that there are open issues does not mean the apps are completely broken. However, if I invite my friends unto my server I need to be able to have a fairly stable system to not piss them off (squandered some good will when pushing scuttlebut some time ago :slight_smile: ). I am using Zusam for a few people but the lack of admin user is a problem if I am to host more friends, and this is also more of a discussion group than a social media app with profiles.

Specifcally my question is thus: my aim is to host a social media site for friends, which is preferably connected to the fediverse, which is stable for the users and has a good working yunohost package. Which yunohost app is at the moment stable and functionality wise good enough to do this?

(to be clear, I really appreciate all the work that goes into yunohost and it’s many apps, also those mentioned in the post. I am not at all a good enough coder to tackle the issues myself, and I can see why a social media app specifically would be such a nightmare to make work in a stable way. Please understand this question as pragmatic and not in anyway a larger critique of yunohost and its hardworking maintainers!)


(Traduction fait avec Deeple de la version Anglaise, mais des commentaires en Français sont tres appréciés)

Bonjour,

En bref, quelle application de médias sociaux fonctionne vraiment bien en ce moment ?

J’utilise Yunohost depuis un certain temps et j’en suis très satisfait, donc merci à vous tous. J’ai quelques applications qui fonctionnent bien, mais je prévois d’améliorer ma configuration matérielle pour pouvoir en faire plus. L’une des choses que je veux faire est d’héberger un serveur de médias sociaux pour mes amis, de préférence quelque chose dans le fediverse. Cependant, en vérifiant les applications actuelles, j’ai découvert que presque toutes ont des problèmes ouverts importants. Par exemple, mon premier choix était pixelfed puisqu’un client natif est maintenant disponible sur Android. Cependant, depuis 2023, il y a un problème ouvert dans github qui dit que les téléchargements échouent à cause d’un problème avec les permissions de fichiers. Sur le forum ici, les gens rapportent que cela échoue pour eux avec les nouvelles mises à jour, etc. Je voulais auparavant utiliser Movim, ce qui a également échoué car il n’est plus maintenu (ce qui était une de mes questions précédentes). Friendica a également un problème ouvert lors de l’installation de l’application, etc.

Je suis conscient que le fait qu’il y ait des problèmes ouverts ne signifie pas que les applications sont complètement cassées. Cependant, si j’invite mes amis sur mon serveur, je dois pouvoir disposer d’un système relativement stable pour ne pas les énerver (j’ai gaspillé un peu de bonne volonté en poussant le scuttlebut il y a quelque temps :slight_smile: ). J’utilise Zusam pour quelques personnes mais le manque d’utilisateur administrateur est un problème si je dois héberger plus d’amis, et c’est aussi plus un groupe de discussion qu’une application de média social avec des profils.

Plus précisément, ma question est la suivante : mon objectif est d’héberger un site de médias sociaux pour des amis, qui soit de préférence connecté au fediverse, qui soit stable pour les utilisateurs et qui dispose d’un paquet yunohost qui fonctionne bien. Quelle application yunohost est actuellement stable et suffisamment fonctionnelle pour faire cela ?

(pour être clair, j’apprécie vraiment tout le travail qui est fait dans yunohost et ses nombreuses applications, y compris celles mentionnées dans le post. Je ne suis pas du tout un assez bon codeur pour m’attaquer aux problèmes moi-même, et je comprends pourquoi une application de médias sociaux en particulier serait un tel cauchemar à faire fonctionner d’une manière stable. Veuillez comprendre cette question comme étant pragmatique et non pas comme une critique plus large de yunohost et de ses mainteneurs qui travaillent dur).

hi!

“social media app” is really vast, can you define which functionnalities are needed?


salut !

“app de réseau social” est nébuleux, peux-tu définir quelles fonctionnalités sont attendues ?

Thanks for answering.

I would need friends to be able to post something like toots/tweets, and also Photos which would feature in a timeline for all users who follow them. also not all of my friends need to follow eachother (which is why zusam is not a real option). Direct messages within this app are not really necessary (but would be nice), since I could still use XMPP. If it can be fediverse based it would be nice so that friends who start hosting their own server can also be part of the network.

Basically, I need something that would function as an alternative to the private profiles on instagram. Which is why pixelfed was my first choice but seems like that is not really working well since there is a persistent issues with uploading photos?

Glitch-Soc is well maintained on YH, it is a fork of Mastodon with additional features like markdown support and local only posting.

GoToSocial is still in alpha but it works great on YH and is updated the same day as the upstream updates. It works with all mobile Mastodon apps and web front ends are available through https://enafore.social, https://elk.zone, etc.

Iceshrimp works well on YH. It started as a fork of Firefish and has made vast improvements to performance in the year it’s been under development. It has most of the Misskey features.

As for what to avoid, Misskey is almost 2 years out of date on YH and thus has a lot of security vulnerabilities that have since been patched on current versions.

GoToSocial is well mantained here and development takes steady but sounded steps.

I selfhost it for two years and is my main fediverse account.

In YNH is easy to install and test yoursefl its features, give some weeks/days and test if it would be a good choice. It is not an app in terms of social media, it’s a server, so you need to use an actual client (app) like phanpy, pinafore forks, mastodon, mastodon forks, tusky, … whatever the platform your friends are in. You will be connected to the ActivityPub Fediverse, doing usual X/IG/Tiktok things (it supports video, images, and soon :tm: audio clips).

One feature overlooked is how easy is to set its federation as a whitelist of opt-in servers, or even do not federate at all (exclusive use for your friends).

2 Likes

Thanks Ghose and Poisonous, that helps a lot!!

1 Like

I’d like to see a Nostr-Relay for Yunohost. With a self-hosted relay which is not published you could use the fast evolving Nostr apps and restrict content to the people you share the relay access. Unfortunately, I don’t know hot to do make it work by myself, yet.

Be aware that you can’t reuse a domain name with another software or another installation after using it with a fedi software
If you have to make tests, do them with test sub domains

2 Likes

Oh, what is the reason why one can’t do that?

Because of keys that are shared between instances to secure federation

And be aware that some programs does not allow to be used from a subdomain like domain.com/fedisoftware

Hm, ok, thank you. Knowing that couldn’t one transfer the keys? Or revoke previous ones from a new install?

it’s not a subdomain but a path (a subdomain is like sub.domain.tld)

I’m also interested in this, even if (a tad?) offtopic.

Say your server catches fire and you want to deploy a new instance with the same domain. Is there any way to do it safely? Would it be ok to block the domains your instance federates with beforehand? Could GtS’ Expire remote instance keys feature be useful somehow?

don’t you have backups?

else, i don’t really know the subject, you have better chance to get a corerct answer by asking to some fedi software dev, not some random nerd like me

1 Like

I want to come back to this post. Although I first leaned towards iceshrimp, the install required a lot of RAM which made me keep searching. In the end I found that (Streams) has a yunohost package which works perfectly and is great for both small community/group use and following people online more broadly. just thought I should mention this for anyone else searching this forum later on.