Changes in Reddit‘s policy regarding access to its API (Application Programming Interface) have caused thousands of communities on the massively popular social media platform to go private in protest. The announcement, which came in April, revealed Reddit would make access to its API by third-party applications more difficult and expensive, through rate limits and the introduction of a (paid) “premium access point.”
Moderators and users at large relied heavily on these third-party apps to make up for some of Reddit’s shortcomings. Without them, their user experience would significantly suffer. From June 12 to 14, many moderators turned their subreddits private so no one besides the people already subscribed could access them, effectively shutting Reddit off to most of the web. Some said they would not go public again until the platform backtracked on these changes.
Although there’s no website quite like Reddit online — and many of these alternatives might still pose a lot of the same challenges to its users and moderators — here are some alternatives you can turn to during this strike if you’re missing the sense of community and the daily flow of information the platform used to provide.
Quora
A lot of what makes Reddit so popular is its community-based topic discussions, where users share their own personal experiences and expertise regarding any subject under the sun. If that was your primary use for the site, Quora can be a great replacement.
Quora is a question-and-answer-based platform, built upon user-generated posts, as well as user-generated replies. Like Reddit, you can also follow specific topics you’re interested in and vote on the answers you found most helpful. The scope of the content you will find on Quora will not be as broad as Reddit — it’s a more informative platform, reliant on text rather than visuals, with less focus on entertainment and other faits divers.
Discord
If it’s the social aspect of Reddit that you’re missing, Discord might be a good alternative. Although the two platforms are wildly different, there’s already significant overlap between both target audiences. Discord was initially conceived as a platform for the gaming community but has since expanded to become one of the most used text and video free chat services available.
Discord allows you to create or enter pre-existing communities focused on a topic of interest from music to games, to movies, to politics. The user interface doesn’t share a lot with Reddit’s, but it does have the added bonus of more direct contact between users of a given server and the possibility to stream on both video and voice channels.
Tumblr
Tumblr was once one of the biggest websites online. Although it’s been struggling to retain its users ever since Yahoo bought it in 2013, the blogging platform has somehow managed to stay afloat, and those who have remained loyal to it have kept a lot of the communities alive.
Through tag pages and the website’s search function, users can start curating their dashboards to best fit their interests. Most of the activity on Tumblr revolves around sharing other people’s publications or making your own, and not so much Reddit’s typical discussion forum format. Still, if you’re looking for people who share the same passions as you do, or for quality content about an array of things, Tumblr might fill the gap.
Tildes
If you love the type of interface Reddit offers, but are not the biggest fan of how heated conversations can get or how often mature content makes its way to search results, Tildes might be the new platform for you. It’s a highly moderated alternative to Reddit which deletes any discussions that are deemed uncivil.
It’s an invite-only website, but you can find a way to get an invitation on Reddit itself at /r/Tildes. If, on the other hand, you’re looking for platforms that are even less monitored than Reddit, and allow almost anyone to post almost anything, then Tildes is not for you.
Kbin
Kbin is one of the most popular websites mentioned on the r/RedditAlternatives subreddit. It’s still in its beta version as of June 2023 but many Reddit users are betting on its growth. Kbin is also a messageboard website, which uses the open-source ActivityPub protocol and is a part of the group of pages known as Fediverse — these pages, which are essentially copies of Reddit, Twitter, YouTube, Facebook, and others, all share the same system and can, therefore, interact with one another.
You’ll be able to find equivalents to most of the features from Reddit, like the Karma scoring system, for example, on Kbin. But you’ll also be able to follow accounts from other platforms on Fediverse without necessarily having to create a whole new account.
Hive.blog
Hive.blog is a relatively popular website that shares a lot of the same characteristics as Reddit. They both revolve around content sharing and user engagement, with a relatively similar interaction system of upvotes and comments. However, many prefer Hive.blog for a number of reasons.
Firstly, Hive.blog allows users to earn rewards via Hive tokens — its native cryptocurrency. They can achieve this by posting and finding quality content. Additionally, a lot of previous Reddit fans find Hive.blog’s decentralization very attractive. Instead of being run by a company, Hive.blog is operated by a community of users — this decreases the moderation and “censorship” from a defined policy or guideline.
Slashdot
Slashdot is a great resource for tech enthusiasts. Think of Reddit but most of its content focuses on things like software, hardware, cybersecurity, artificial intelligence, and maybe even a topic such as the one driving this article.
Besides the typical link-sharing and open discussion format, Slashdot also offers interviews with tech experts, book reviews, and other interesting features. Instead of upvotes, moderation and content selection on Slashdot are done via a specific rating that includes the labels “insightful,” “informative,” “funny,” “Off-topic,” and “troll.”
MetaFilter
MetaFilter is another example of a messageboard community weblog, that is a bit more moderated than Reddit. It also hosts a number of subsites like FanFare for fan communities, Music for users to share their work, and even Jobs for global job vacancies. You can also browse tags to find more specific topics while entering the discussions in the comments.
MetaFilter’s interface is a lot simpler than Reddit, significantly less visual, and therefore less engaging. It’s mostly a discussion forum with text content, but it does cover that aspect of Reddit in a satisfactory manner.
Pinterest is the opposite of MetaFilter in the sense that it does not offer any sort of messageboard interface and is instead made up of almost exclusively visual content. It’s a good place to collect and save your favorite images and videos.
While Pinterest doesn’t come close to covering every feature that Reddit offers, those not interested in the comments under their favorite videos and images that they find on the platform might still find this image-driven alternative interesting. Discussions with peers won’t hold an important place in your Pinterest experience, but it’s nonetheless one of the most satisfying social media websites to curate and find inspiration.
Mix
Like Pinterest, Mix is targeted towards users who prefer the visual content of Reddit, rather than the written debates and discussions. You can pick the topics that you’re most passionate about, and select whether you’re more interested in images, videos, gifs, and even articles.
On Mix, people can follow you and you can follow them based on their own topics of choice. These include things like Entertainment, Environment, Horror, Jazz, Photography, and anything else you can think of.
