Mastodon servers provide a CORS-based API that allows people to develop completely local alternative frontends for it that you can freely try with your existing accounts.

This means that you actually have a lot of options if you don’t like the default Mastodon web experience (which I feel is quite a few people). I’ve highlighted a few that I’ve been using in this post.

With these frontends you sign in using OAuth but the token is stored locally so you may need to authenticate multiple times across different devices and you can just clear local storage to stop using the frontend, no server accounts should be involved.

Pinafore

Pinafore (Github) has been one of my favourite interfaces being very simple and clear with a very pure central column.

However it has sadly been discontinued for active development but still works pretty great in practice and I continue to prefer to use it for posting. It’s worth reading the article to see how stressful it can be to maintain open-source projects and also how easy it is to end up in a dead end when choosing frontend technologies.

Phanpy

Phanpy (Github) does a really good job of rendering threads and also periodically highlights posts based on Boosts in the timeline allowing you to pick up on conversations that you might have missed out on.

I’m not sure I’m getting the best out of it currently but I have started it using it more on the weekends to try and catch up on accounts I don’t post on that frequently.

Phanpy seems to have a lot of positive buzz but it hasn’t been an immediate hit for me and I can’t quite articulate why that it is. It definitely makes it easier to follow conversations between people you’re following but there is maybe something in the post layout of the alternatives that I prefer.

Elk

Elk (Github) is a kind of eternal-alpha, I’ve dipped in and out a little bit. It is has a clearer design from my perspective to the default Mastodon experience but with images it really shines and seems to do a much better job at displaying pictures in the timeline, getting heights right and doing a better job of highlighting multiple pictures in a post.

It’s definitely my preferred way of looking at nature and travel photography posts.