The Big List of Mastodon Alternative Web Clients

Netwatch
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Okay, so this won’t exactly be a big list at the time of this initial post, but I wanted to get this started and hopefully we’ll be able to add to it over time. This topic is for anyone that doesn’t like the vanilla Mastodon web interface (even with @Sirs0ri’s fantastic userscript on top!) and wants something a little different. Well, I’m here to tell you that there are some options.

  • Elk (elk.corteximplant.com): Elk is an alternative front-end that has been in development for a little while, and lucky for you, we have one setup already for our CORTEXIMPLANT Mastodon instance! It has a really clean look and feel, allows some color and theme customizations, and has some other interesting features worth checking out.
  • Phanpy (phanpy.social): This is another (somewhat opinionated) web front end that looks somewhat similar to Elk, but it has a few different features and has a really nice look and feel to it, and has some nice features like conversation threading and pop out conversations. It doesn’t have a multi-column interface though, so if that’s your jam you may not like this one. But it’s definitely worth a test drive.
  • Trunks trunks.social: Trunks is a Mastodon client that is available across all platforms - iOS, Android, and Web. The developer tries to keep the experience the same across all the devices, and this one supports a multi-column mode as well as a single-column mode. Additionally, it has some neat features like digest mode, threading, and “remember last read” features to help keep control of your timeline.
  • Semaphore semaphore.social: Semaphore is a simple front end UI similar to Phanpy and Elk, but really kind of latches on to the “less is more” category. Of particular note here are the “Wellness” settings, which can help turn off a lot of the distractions and even set grayscale themes to help minimize eye-strain and help one focus on the actual information being shared. Definitely worth checking out. Thanks to @mello for the tip!
  • Enafore enafore.social: This is a more up-to-date fork of Semaphore, with better support for other Fediverse clients like Akkoma, glitch-soc (Mastodon fork), and others. If you like Semaphore, I would definitely check out Enafore!

So these are all the alternate web UIs for Mastodon that I know about currently. Know of some other ones? Please feel free to add them in the comments so that folks know where to look in the event that they find that they just don’t like the base Masto interface anymore. :smiley:

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This is my favourite one. Imagine bothering to have a Wellness settings page that says:

Wellness settings are designed to reduce the addictive or anxiety-inducing aspects of social media.

You can use it in Grayscale!

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oooooh, this is nice! Super minimal and I’ll bet it looks great on a phone as a PWA or shortcut! I’m going to give it a go and see how I like it!

And yeah, the Wellness settings are cool too. I want to say that I’ve seen this somewhere else in another client as well, but since I can’t remember for certain, it would be cool to see more clients adopt this idea.

Thanks for the recommendation!

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I like Semafore too, but it’s sad that the project is basically dead

When it was active I wanted to help with some PRs, but sadly I don’t have the time to lead the project. But it’s still on my plans, maybe I can revive semaphore for a second time when I got more time.

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yeah, that’s why I added Enafore to the list as well. It’s a fork that is more actively maintained (I think). But it has some nice additional features that Semafore doesn’t have.

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Arghh I didn’t know it was archived. Bookmarked Enafore :saluting_face:

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Woah there bis an activity maintained Pinafore Fork, I totally overlooked that, sorry^^

Well, maybe I can help out there, it looks promising

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There’s also the Roma “family” of apps. I tried Roma desktop on macOS: working as intended, but not that great in managing timelines. Or it’s my fault, I actually spent little time inside the app.

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