Draft talk:Comparison of Fediverse software

I have a number of suggestion for columns to make this much less Mastodon-centric.

First of all, "Fork of" should be empty if it isn't a fork at all. Mastodon isn't a Mastodon fork. Forks of forks... should be traced back to the original step by step as I've done with (streams).

Next, "Federated since" is too broad. This should be split into three columns: "Federated internally since" (Diaspora*: 2010), "Federated externally since" (Diaspora*: 2011 AFAIR, and that was all Friendica's doing), "Federated with ActivityPub since" (Diaspora*: never).

It could also be interesting to have "First beta release" and "First stable release" columns next to the "Inception" column.

A field for former names (e.g. Firefish: CalcKey; Friendica: Mistpark, Friendika) could be useful.

To the left of the maintainer field, there should be a creator field. For example, Hubzilla is currently being maintained by Mario Vavti, but it was created by Mike Macgirvin.

There should be terminology columns, especially for the term for an instance (Diaspora*: pod, Friendica: node, Hubzilla: hub, Mastodon: server, Funkwhale: pod) and for the term for posts

As for Features, I don't even know where to begin. There are so many features that I think belong into this table. I've once started my own draft for such a page, so I'll take my suggestions from there including categories and expand them another bit.

User interface:

Different Web frontends available to admins
Different Web frontends available to users
Different themes per Web frontend (no, only colours, yes)
Custom colour themes
Dark mode (no, yes, optionally automatic, automatic)
Public timeline/stream (no, optional, always)
Mastodon API support
Official dedicated desktop app available
Dedicated Windows apps available (dedicated means apps for this specific project as opposed to Mastodon apps that happen to work)
Dedicated macOS apps available
Dedicated Linux command-line apps available
Dedicated Graphical Linux apps available
Dedicated apps for other desktop operating systems available
Official dedicated mobile app available
Dedicated iOS apps available
Dedicated Android apps available in the Google Play Store
Dedicated Android apps available on F-Droid
Dedicated apps for other mobile operating systems available

Accounts and profiles:

Multiple identities/channels per account with separate content and separate connections
Multiple profiles per account/channel
Assign profiles to specific connections
Assign profiles to groups of connections
Number of profile fields
Dedicated hashtag profile field
Variable account/channel role
Pre-defined account/channel role presets
Account/channel verification
OpenWebAuth single sign-on support
Limit OpenWebAuth to only instances with connections on them
OAuth client
OAuth server
OAuth2 client
OAuth2 server

Moving:

Move to other instances of the same project
Move to other projects with the same underlying protocol
Move to other projects with a different underlying protocol
Move from other instances of the same project
Move from other projects with the same underlying protocol
Move from other projects with a different underlying protocol
Move profile/s
Move followed
Move followers
Move images, media and other content
Nomadic identity
Export account/channel
Import account/channel

Forums, discussion groups, communities:

Official term
Accounts/channels as forums/discussion groups
Separate forum/discussion group/community feature
Private forums/discussion groups
Forum/discussion group/community moderation
Crossposting to multiple forums/discussion groups/communities possible

Connections and interaction:

Directory
Confirm new connections (no, optional, always)
Only followers possible
Only following possible
Variable permissions for connections
Presets for per-connection permissions
Hide connections
Ignore connections
Block connections
Ignore non-connections
Block non-connections
Connection groups
Point-and-click group editor
Post to specific groups
Show/hide group membership

Built-in search:

Hashtags
User accounts/channels by name
Forums/discussion groups/communities by name
Posts by URL
Full-text
Offers opt-in/opt-out for search (no, non-standard, standard)
Respects standard opt-in/opt-out for search
Documentation (I'm not even kidding, you can search the documentation on at least Hubzilla and (streams))
Save searches
Automated search as an actor (think MissKey/Firefish antennas)
Admin can deactivate local public search

Posts and threads:

Thread structure (single posts vs. one-post-plus-comments)
Mention necessary to deliver a reply/comment
Term for posts (see further above)
Post language can be specified
Default maximum post length
Abstract counts into the post length
Alt-text counts into the post length
Hard-capped post length (longer posts are truncated; Mastodon: no)
Titles
Use of Abstract field (Mastodon: content warning, Friendica/Hubzilla/(streams): summary)
Abstract field available for replies/comments
Boost (direct reshare)
Reshare by quote
Reshare automatically
Quotes (no, show only, only full quotes, partial and full quotes)
Access rights for replies/comments always the same as for the start post
Edit own posts/comments/direct messages
Delete own posts/comments/direct messages
Delete comments under own posts
Manually accept comments under own posts
Post categories (in addition to hashtags)
Locations for posts

Text formatting and decoration:

Markup language/s in the editor
WYSIWYG editor (no, optional, always)
Bold type and italics (no, show only, yes for this point and the ones below)
Underline
Strikethrough
In-line code
Code blocks
Language-specific code highlighting
Embedded links (as opposed to always having to show the URL)
Emoji (no, show only, yes)
Project-specific emoji
Instance-specific emoji
Headlines (if not no, then how many, max: 6)
Variable text size
RGB text colours
Named text colours
RGB text highlighting
Named text highlighting
Variable typeface
Text orientation (e.g. centred)
Bullet-point lists (no, yes, variable bullet points)
Lists with numbers/letters (if yes, which)
Tables
Horizontal rules
Observer-specific features

Images:

Maximum number of images per post
Images attached to post or linked to file space
Embed images within text (= post text above and below the images)
In-post image resizing
Maximum alt-text length
Hard-capped alt-text length (longer alt-texts are truncated; Mastodon: yes)
Dedicated alt-text editor on default Web interface

Sensitive content and content warnings:

Content warning through Abstract field is standard
Abstract field also hides images/media
Abstract field automatically blurs images/media (no, limited, yes)
Automated content warning by filter possible
Automated content blocking by filter possible
Number of filters
Filter import/export
Automatic filter expiry
Images/media can be flagged sensitive (yes, does not work across protocols, no)

File uploads and file space:

File space with file manager
Subfolders
Adjustable access permissions
Access permissions control for images/media when embedded
Guest tokens
WebDAV access

Media:

Supported image formats
Maximum image file size
Image gallery
Audio file streaming
Maximum audio file size
Supported audio file formats
Video file streaming
Maximum video file size
Maximum video length
Supported video file formats

Calendar: (this should be able to show that Hubzilla has both a public non-CalDAV calendar and an optional built-in CalDAV calendar server which are separate)

Non-CalDAV calendar (no, events app only, private, public)
Collaboration on non-CalDAV calendar (no, only specific connections, yes)
CalDAV calendars (no, without frontend, private, public)
Collaboration on CalDAV calendars (no, only specific connections, yes)
CalDAV calendar supports tasks

Other features:

Built-in chat
Chatrooms
Long-form articles (no, local only, announced as Notes, transmitted as Articles)
Markup languages for long-form articles
Abstracts/summaries for long-form articles (only yes when it isn't an automatically chosen or defined part of the beginning of the article itself)
Wikis (no, one, multiple)
Markup languages for wiki pages
Webpages
Markup languages for webpages
CardDAV address book (no, without frontend, yes)
Notes
Flash cards
QR code generator
OpenStreetMap support for locations

Under Technical, I'm wondering if it's better to keep one protocol column and squeeze everything into one field which will grow huge for Friendica and Hubzilla or add these separate columns:

Main protocol
OStatus support
Federation with Diaspora*
ActivityPub support
Zot/Nomad support
Native federation with WordPress/XMLRPC
Federation with Libertree
Federation with Twitter
Federation with Facebook
Native federation with Tumblr
RSS/Atom aggregator
RSS/Atom feed
Federation with e-mail

By the way, if a feature was introduced after the project was launched, it might be interesting when it was introduced. In this case, the yes checkmark could be overridden with the year. Vice-versa, if a feature was removed, the no checkmark could be overridden with the year.

Oh wow, you really put some thought into this.

You can do the changes, but make sure that no table gets too big.

On the bottom there is a template you can use to create more tables.

This is just a draft for now. Once a table is finished it could also be moved to it's separate article.

I wouldn't leave the "Fork of" empty for non-forks, but rename the column to something that makes more sense, like "Original software" or sth. like that.

Terminology should probably be it's own table, at least if there are many terms you want to explain.

Maybe one table for basic features and then separate tables for each feature category you mentioned?

I'm not sure what you mean with "less Mastodon-centric"?. How is it Mastodon-centric now and how would it be less then?

Oh and by the way, just FYI: The order of the projects as it is here (derived from the current version of the features column; so microblogging first, then other txt-based projects and so on) should be the order anywhere in the wiki (e.g. you added some projects on the bottom of the weblinks page. These should be moved upwards accordingly.)

--Paula (talk) 09:57, 28 August 2023 (CEST)

It's Mastodon-centric in my opinion because it takes Mastodon's features and only Mastodon's features and checks if the other projects have them, too.

First of all, it doesn't list a single feature that Mastodon doesn't have.

Also, it implies that everything is more or less like Mastodon. The "media uploads" column implies that you can add images by either uploading them to your post and thus attaching them to your post as files or not at all. This absolutely does not compute in the cases of Plume, Friendica, Hubzilla and (streams) which have built-in, managed file spaces and a workflow more like writing a blog article. In this case, you first upload your images or other media to the file space. Then you link them into the post.

And maybe it's just me, but I understand the column "moving follows" as "moving those that you follow" which implies that it isn't even possible to also move followers at all because that isn't possible on Mastodon AFAIK.

One more question: Would it make more sense to group limitations (post length, alt-text length, maximum file size) in one table or under their respective topics (post length under post features etc.)?

--Jupiter Rowland (talk) 11:06, 11 September 2023 (CEST)