Here is a 5-lines comment I usually use on Reddit when people ask about Lemmy or a Reddit alternative

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"
Lemmy has 47k monthly active users

• https://discuss.online/ if you want a server located in the USA (content is still accessible from any server, the most difference latency)
• https://sopuli.xyz/ if you want a server located in the EU
• https://vger.app/settings/install if you want an app

Feel free if you have any questions
"

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A few questions that get asked quite often about this comment.

Why no explain what federation is?

Most of the users don’t care about federation. They want a jump-in Reddit replacement, and it’s usually better to keep the message short and simple.

There are users on Sync or Voyager who only use their app, and don’t even know what instance they are on. And they are doing okay, they can still use the platform, see content, vote, comment, post.

People who want to understand more will figure it out later. No need to overwhelm them.

Why those two instances?

Long story short, there is no ideal generalist instance. If you open the top 20 instances (https://fedidb.org/software/lemmy/)

• Lemmy.world is too big
• Lemm.ee is federated with hexbear and lemmygrad, something that is not very welcoming to new users (see this thread: https://sh.itjust.works/post/28798607/15305964 )
• sh.itjust.works names contains “shit”, which can deter users
• lemmy.ca is Canadian-centric
• feddit.org, is German-centric, but technically English speaking too
• dbzer0 federates hexbear
• programming.dev is topic-centric
• blahaj is queer-focused
• discuss.tchncs.de has a difficult name
• lemmy.sdf.org does not defederate anyone
• lemmy.zip is federated with hexbear and lemmygrad
• beehaw is way outdated
• infosec.pub is topic-centric
• aussie.zone is country-centric
• midwest.social is region-centric and admin can power trip at times (https://sopuli.xyz/post/20038037)

That’s how I came up with sopuli.xyz (neutral name, stable, defederated grad and hexbear) and discuss.online (same).

Mentioning one per continent allows users to make one choice, so that we avoid the Lemmy.world situation where users realize that the server follows European laws (remember the announcement following Luigi: https://lemmy.world/post/22920690 )

I also have no way to know what the person I’m replying to is interested in. Of course if you are commenting on a specific subreddit, feel free to adapt the message for a fitting instance.

Why Voyager?

Same logic, people want one app. Voyager is feature rich and is available on both Android and iOS, and follow the Apollo design that a lot of people might be familiar with.

If people want to change, they will later https://www.lemmyapps.com/

That’s it for now, see you in the comments for any feedback!

Why not use join-lemmy.org?

This website can be hit or miss, with some very negative experience recently: https://lemmy.world/post/24220536

I prefer to just point out to two instances that I know are stable and reliable.

Why not Discord?

Discord is a poor replacement for Reddit. Here are 4 reasons why:

• Format: Discord’s main strength is chat-style messages, not forum-style discussion threads, like Reddit and Lemmy. Discord groups with more than a few dozen active users can quickly become disorganized.
• Barrier to entry: Content on Discord is inaccessible unless you have a Discord account, while almost all content on Reddit and Lemmy is available without registration.
• Discoverability: Google (and other search engines) index Reddit and Lemmy, and relevant threads show up in searches. Discord content cannot be indexed, and won’t show up in searches.
• Censorship: A Discord community is ultimately still controlled by a single Big Tech company, which can delete your community on a whim if they so choose. Lemmy, being a distributed social network, is inherently resistant to censorship.