Akkoma seems to be indeed the best Mastodon alternative for self-hosting right now, although with things changing quickly during this time, who knows if this is still true next month :)
this post was submitted on 05 Jan 2023
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It is indeed what I'm running these days. Loving it. It is like someone has made a "paper cuts"-list of Pleroma and then "just fixed it", and then added small sweet little things that make for better usability. Great stuff. Made me finally sort out a Liberapay account so I could show my support in ways that matter.
Can you list some of the differences between pleroma and akkoma? I know they removed the shoutbox (which was pretty useless) and chats (which I think should be improved instead of removed).
EDIT: I've also seen some akkoma instances and their frontend doesn't have some of the features that pleroma does, so it seems they've gone the hard fork route which is disappointing.
Firstly, this will have to be from memory of my old (actually current stable version) install of Pleroma, and things I have reacted positively on:
- There are back-end changes. Not sure what impact they have had, but I've seen the Pleroma devs migrating in things to Pleroma from Akkoma, so obviously some things have been solved by Akkoma.
- Regular updates - not something Pleroma can be accused of. Akkoma does a new release the second Saturday each month, and has a clear roadmap everyone can see (good expectation management).
- Admin options in admin-fe has been cleared up, and actually work. Still areas that could do with improvements (as they are inherited from Pleroma), but I remember settings that were confusing and/or plainly didn't work for me in Pleroma "just works" in Akkoma. Possibly related to first point in this list.
- The rest is GUI things (and now I am only talking about pleroma-fe). I don't know how, or who, configured the instances you've been looking at, but I have not encountered any other micro-blogging service, on the Fediverse or elsewhere, with as much functionality before (I have accounts on "everything", for testing).
- Tree-view of threads (an optional account setting)
- A "floating" bar saying "Collapse" that always stay within reach if you've "folded out" a thread which turned out to be 3 miles long and you're not looking forward to scrolling the next 5 minutes.
- Search (full-text) works fine (IMHO). Was a hit-and-miss in my old Pleroma instance, and could previously generate different results on repeated searches. With Akkoma it seems to "just work".
- Lists and list management - massive improvement. Could still be improved further, but a huge step up from Pleroma.
- Follow hashtags
- Translations (I use DeepL)
A lot of the rest it has inherited from Pleroma, which was good to start with. Pretty much everything can be styled (except easily changing fonts unless you wish to code) from GUI settings (I run a Dracula inspired self-styled theme). It has Misskey emojis/animations, but I don't care (at all) about those. Quote posting is the same as in Pleroma. It has all the filter-options from Pleroma too. There is nothing in Pleroma that isn't in Akkoma. There's lots in Akkoma that isn't in Pleroma.
Most importantly, compared to Mastodon and pretty much all other fediverse micro-blogging services: it dynamically shows the contents in all threads, and on profiles. If it doesn't have the stuff you are looking at (say, a profile), it runs off to get it for you, and within a couple of seconds it has populated that profile, instead of staying empty (like on Mastodon, Misskey, Calckey etc). The same goes for threads: it goes out to collect replies from people even if you haven't seen them (or, their instances) before, instead of staying empty/invisible (like on Mastodon/Calckey). So..."proper" Federation.
But yeah, something like that. :)
Hah, forgot to say: Yes, the shoutbox and chat was removed. As I run an instance-of-one in any case I don't miss them.
Also, Akkoma dev has made friends with the Glitch-social people and so the "advanced" Mastodon-fe is updated and available again. It doesn't have all the bells and whistles in functionality from Akkomas pleroma-fe though. Also, for those inclined, there is a soapbox-fe too. I don't run it so don't know much about it, other than that it looks simplistic and nice, but I prefer pleroma-fe (in Akkomas version) so haven't tried it.
Thanks for all that info. Maybe the akkoma instance I was looking at was broken or had patches that changed features around.
it dynamically shows the contents in all threads, and on profiles
That sounds great. I hope pleroma pulls that in. The tree-view and Collapse header seem to have made it back to pleroma and they're really useful.
Their FAQ has a section on the differences.
I think it was a good decision to remove the chat. Apparently it worked quite badly, was not supported by any other AP software and there are other protocols like xmpp or Matrix that are much better suited for private chats.
Their FAQ has a section on the differences.
This faq? I don't see any comparison with pleroma.
was not supported by any other AP software
Lemmy seems to support it, though not very well. I agree xmpp or matrix are better suited for that, but ppl still want DMs and pleroma chats are a better alternative to that.
It explains the differences and links to a more detailed explanation.
I guess you want a table listing technical differences in detail? That would make little sense as both projects are still pulling changes from each other and are in active development, especially Akkoma. So such a table would be outdated within a very short time. Look that the git change log I guess?
Def watching this later. I installed the AUR package on my Arch box but I unable to figure out how to install any of the front ends.
Perhaps can find a way forward at the bottom of this link: https://docs.akkoma.dev/stable/installation/otp_en/
Have not tried it myself. Nice that there's a bin package in AUR. I see that Akkoma has IRC and Discourse community channels : https://docs.akkoma.dev/stable/
This is exactly what I got running. Service "works" but will probably need help from the IRC channel.