Brutaldon is even more pared down skin (and offers an even more Web 1.0 brutalism beyond that): https://brutaldon.online/
Most of the skins redirect to mastodon.social on the Create Account link because they don't host the accounts themselves, they just offer views for whatever account(s) you do have.
Halcyon and Pinafore are both just front-ends for existing mastodon accounts (like brutaldon).
Pleroma is a different technology, but federates the same. As is Misskey; depending on what you're looking for in features either of those might do it more for you (or the glitchsoc fork of mastodon). (and theming is a thing, of course, regardless)
It's been posted here before, but http://fediverse.party/ is a nice little overview of the federated social web (over ActivityPub, I believe); https://the-federation.info/ is broader. Both have some small issues but are nice starting places.
My exact reaction. I have tried using Mastodon, but that thing is designed by engineers with no common design sense. Just sticking to browser defaults would be a huge improvement. It looks like something I should use to impress 15 year olds with.
TekMol|7 years ago
First page already looks way more complex and flimsy then Twitter.
Then I click on 'or create an account' and I am redirected to mastodon.social. WTF?
Pinafore: I don't understand what I am supposed to do with it.
WorldMaker|7 years ago
Most of the skins redirect to mastodon.social on the Create Account link because they don't host the accounts themselves, they just offer views for whatever account(s) you do have.
ohtwenty|7 years ago
Pleroma is a different technology, but federates the same. As is Misskey; depending on what you're looking for in features either of those might do it more for you (or the glitchsoc fork of mastodon). (and theming is a thing, of course, regardless)
It's been posted here before, but http://fediverse.party/ is a nice little overview of the federated social web (over ActivityPub, I believe); https://the-federation.info/ is broader. Both have some small issues but are nice starting places.
msaharia|7 years ago