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PieFed, a FOSS Feed Aggregator alternative to Lemmy, but faster


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Welcome to a new era of interconnected content discussion with PieFed – a link aggregator, a forum, a hub of social interaction and information, built for the fediverse. Our focus is on individual control, safety, and decentralised power.

Like other platforms in the fediverse, we are a self-governed space for social link aggregation and conversation. We operate without the influence of corporate entities – ensuring that your experience is free of advertisements, invasive tracking, or secret algorithms. On our platform, content is grouped into communities, allowing you to engage with topics of interest and disregard the irrelevant ones. We utilise a voting system to highlight the best content.
- Source Code (Codeberg)
- Roadmap
- Comparing network utilization of Lemmy, Kbin and PieFed
- Instances


Video introduction the codebase

in reply to Droid

Hello from Piefed! I was a regular on Lemmy and Mastodon for years, but I migrated to Piefed because it is much more lightweight.

The features page shows some differences between Piefed and Lemmy - join.piefed.social/features/ Mostly, I appreciate that it is written in Python, so more developers in the community may easily understand and contribute to the code base, and that it is so lightweight. When I connect to the internet I always have to consider data caps, so it's a relief when websites make a genuine effort to be efficient. I can reliably browse the fediverse through Piefed even when my access is throttled to 50Kbps download.

in reply to Nergon

Piefed can be used as a mastodon replacement? I thought it only aggregated fedi groups like Lemmy and Mbin.
in reply to Jezebelley

Not really as far as I understand. You can talk to Mastodon users though, if they post in community threads.
in reply to Nergon

The lightweight claim is a bit of a stretch. You're counting content that gets cached in the browser.
in reply to fmstrat

Well, regardless what tech stack makes it possible, when my phone data is throttled to ~55kbps Piefed is perfectly usable and most sites are not.
in reply to Nergon

Does it require JavaScript? Does it load in Tor Browser on strict mode?
in reply to jagged_circle

Some features of the site (like responding to your comment) require JS, but I just tried blocking JS with uBlock and I was able to use most of the site perfectly fine.

I am not sure about strict mode on Tor, but you should totally report back if it works. Give it a shot!

This entry was edited (1 week ago)
in reply to realcaseyrollins

it's inspired by lemmy but seeks to addres; community concerns stemming from that programming is a form of communication and the things the lemmy project owners value as messaging are vile
in reply to The Quuuuuill

I'm not sure what that even means. Does that mean it's right wing? If software can even be right wing or left wing.
in reply to realcaseyrollins

Two of the developers are scary communist tankies. And no, I don't think software can be right wing or left wing. Maybe if it's centralized, like X, but the developers of Lemmy can't interfere with Lemmy servers they don't admin, and it's open source (lots of other people contribute to the Lemmy source code at this point and so would be able to spot things added in).

Personally, I think the right way to advertise other competitors on the fediverse isnt to fear monger about the developers, but to say what features the alternatives have that might be good. Also, it is nice to have competitors, so also just to advertise based on the availability of alternative options, since it is nice to have those just in case.

This entry was edited (1 week ago)
in reply to WanderingVentra

The Lemmy devs? I'm aware of this. I'm a right winger and that doesn't affect me nearly as much as the far left communities of Lemmy users.

The features are all I care about. Eventually I'll find the right people here and be able to build the communities I want.

in reply to realcaseyrollins

They must have been talking about the Lemmy devs (the main PieFed dev is a lefty but no-one has ever accused him of being a tankie). To give you an idea: piefed.social blocks lemmygrad and hexbear, but it also block hilariouschaos (set up by the old exploding-heads guys).
in reply to Andrew

Ooh I didn't know that the exploding-heads guy did anything else.

Why block instances though? I've never been a fan of that, I just let people block me.

in reply to realcaseyrollins

I couldn't really do justice to his opinions about things like that. I just replied because I recognised your name, and wanted to let you know that the software / instance wouldn't be a good fit for you.
in reply to Andrew

Well, IDK. I'm right wing. Exploding Heads definitely at least leaned right, and found myself arguing with those people a lot of the time, but I do prefer right wing lunacy to left wing lunacy most of the time.
in reply to Andrew

hilariouschaos (set up by the old exploding-heads guys)


...really? I always got the impression that the admin is some teenage girl

in reply to realcaseyrollins

I’m a right winger and that doesn’t affect me nearly as much as the far left communities of Lemmy users.


I am surprised that you have survived this long. I am rather moderate left, and even after blocking the main extreme left instances, I still question my presence when I see the amount of far left populism that gets acclaimed here.

This entry was edited (1 week ago)
in reply to oce 🐆

A lot of it is disengaging from political communities and making my own. So far the people who leave comments now haven't been that but, but we'll see how long that lasts 😂
in reply to oce 🐆

I am rather moderate left

blocking the main extreme left instances


Sounds like you're plenty interested in hearing from conservatives. 🤔

in reply to Diva (she/her)

Anyone who tries to express themselves politely and rationally is welcomed.
in reply to Droid

I would curious to see if you could access piefed using Voyager for Lemmy as a front end. It’s about the only decent app for Lemmy that doesn’t squash things on my iPhone mini with text zoom enabled
in reply to TORFdot0

You can't, no. PieFed and Lemmy are operating in similar spaces, but are completely different architecturally. PieFed doesn't yet have an API. Unlike Lemmy (and a lot of other modern web platforms), it doesn't need one to operate, so copying Lemmy's to the extent that you'd be able to plug in something like Voyager would be overkill. It would probably also be against the TOS for Voyager (Jerboa actively prevents it's use with anything other than Lemmy, even if the API is the same).
in reply to Andrew

It would probably also be against the TOS for Voyager (Jerboa actively prevents it's use with anything other than Lemmy, even if the API is the same).


nothing like that in voyager terms

in reply to 3 dogs in a trenchcoat

Oh okay. Might be though, in the future, if platforms (like Sublinks) get released - it's not really a relevant issue at the mo.
in reply to Andrew

To be completely honest, if you want a healthy 3rd party app ecosystem, the official UI and backend need to be completely separated with a publicly documented API.

Biggest win with Lemmy, and biggest fluff with kbin. And it shows when it comes to 3rd party app ecosystem. People wanted to build apps for kbin….

in reply to Droid

Curious to see if people haven't heard about it, Piefed seems to be mentioned quite often
in reply to Blaze (he/him)

Tbf you're on Lemmy 24/7 so you'll hear about things much earlier than many others. I've also been on Piefed for a minute.

But I've come to understand how slowly knowledge propagates through large numbers of people, at least via this medium. First with the APIcaplyse, when I realized that virtually nobody on reddit had even heard of the API changes, let alone moving to Lemmy. And then on Lemmy itself with various major events/dramas that people were totally unaware of until much later.

Piefed is developing rapidly and seems like a worthy alternative to Lemmy and Mbin. The private voting feature is also really cool.

This entry was edited (1 week ago)
in reply to imaqtpie

No need to be on Lemmy that much, just watching !fedimemes@feddit.uk you would see Piefed mentioned every week

Same here, on !fediverse@lemmy.world

in reply to Blaze (he/him)

I'm on Lemmy all the time and I didn't know that community. But thanks for sharing, this is what I'm talking about.
in reply to imaqtpie

I'm on Lemmy all the time


Seeding a new spot takes work

in reply to Blaze (he/him)

Filtered word: nsfw

in reply to Ofiuco

What drove you from dbzer0 to cafe, blocking ml?

It takes trial and then error because it's user depend, some people might have gone the opposite, from cafe to dbzer0

in reply to Blaze (he/him)

What drove you from dbzer0 to cafe, blocking ml?


Yeah, ml and hex.
Too much mexican goverment propaganda and getting swarmed by those users to defend it, is not a good time.

It takes trial and then error because it's user depend, some people might have gone the opposite, from cafe to dbzer0


I know, and it's a pain... And it will always be a pain.
That's also what discourages me from trying piefed, having to server jump until I find a decent one again.

This entry was edited (1 week ago)
in reply to Blaze (he/him)

I'd heard of it already, since apparently I had added it to my block list, but for the love of me I cannot remember why.
Looks like a pretty nice and standard Lemmy visualizer.
in reply to Droid

Can I access it via Eternity app? Is it basically another instance?
in reply to shawn1122

It's not compatible with apps yet, unfortunately.
in reply to ProdigalFrog

Though there's a feature request for that where db0@lemmy.dbzer0.com said that he would be excited to work on!😀
in reply to db0

Ah, so sorry to hear that! I got excited to hear that you were excited to work on it too... 😛

Thank you for telling me so I won't spread misinformation about it. I hope you get to where you have more time irl soon - whether you choose to spend it on that topic, on Lemmy at all, or touch grass or sth else instead (our health is important!!!). Take good care of yourself (and then get back to work! only if/when you want to ofc:-P).

in reply to OpenStars

I'm always hacking at something. It's just different priorities
in reply to db0

Hehe, always never not be hacking, yes absolutely:-).
in reply to shawn1122

no apps yet. work on an alpha API is in progress though, so soon(tm) hehe
in reply to jollyroberts

This? B/c see the comment elsewhere in this thread by db0 who said he did not have time to work on it right now... 🙁 But I do hope it comes soon:-). And yet the web UI I would hope would be polished regardless.
in reply to OpenStars

This code: codeberg.org/rimu/pyfedi/src/b…

Its mostly freamon and rimu working on that part. Iirc its meant to be lemmy api compatible, but i think there are some adaptations needed to accomadate the piefed way differences.

Freamon got a fork of a lemmy app to sort-of work back in september (https://matrix.to/#/!NVUzKiFppMtECaxHQm:matrix.org/$KJqJfus8DVy-B64AC8uWEQ9oiGsRA04AReRF-05nQYA?via=matrix.org&via=tchncs.de&via=jeena.net) so the alpha api stuff has been coming in since then.

in reply to jollyroberts

Yay! I will have hope in an upcoming API then:-). Thanks for sharing.
in reply to BonerMan

I think it's an alternative way to access the same content, so probably exactly the same number of people you do and do not like
in reply to smeg

It connects to the same Fediverse. But it has a few filters and features added. And the Piefed instances block some known unpleasant instances by default. And it doesn't pull in all the content unless someone subscribes... So it should be a bit better. But underneath, it's the same network and content.
This entry was edited (1 week ago)
in reply to hendrik

it doesn't pull in all the content unless someone subscribes


I think that's how Lemmy works too

in reply to smeg

Ah, I didn't know. I've never ran my own Lemmy instance. I just found out after installing Piefed, that content doesn't appear on it's own. I had to go ahead and add some communities manually. Idk if that changed since.
This entry was edited (1 week ago)
in reply to hendrik

I think that's a deliberate decision, one of the benefits being that a new server doesn't destroy itself by immediately trying to download the entire history of the fediverse!
in reply to Droid

Does it support importing Lemmy subscriptions?
in reply to MBM

Yes. I added that myself a couple months ago 😎

edit: you have to export your lemmy user settings. that comes down as a .json file. Then you make a piefed user, and there is an import settings in the piefed user profile.

it will also attempt to import any blocks/bans of users/communities you had in the lemmy settings. But if the instance of piefed you are on does not 'l\know' about those users/communities it wont add them to bans list. But of course that means the community in question is not federated to the instance you are on, so half-dozen-of-one-six-of-the-other really.

This entry was edited (1 week ago)
in reply to Droid

I believe one of the killer features is the ability to aggregate different communities.
in reply to Akesi Seli

Yes really. Here's an example - see the communities at the top, and hashtags at the bottom.

On second thought, that's not a fantastic example of categories, so here and here are better ones.

There's a lot that is not yet implemented in PieFed, like no preview feature for writing messages or user tagging (e.g. @openstars@piefed.social does not send me a notification), yet it already has several features that Lemmy does not - it's so exciting to watch it develop!😀

in reply to OpenStars

Still no multi communities at the user level (hopefully soon)
This entry was edited (1 week ago)
in reply to Blaze (he/him)

The reason my first example wasn't a good one was that this meme community (!tech_memes@lemmy.world) wasn't part of the organized hierarchy of Home -> Topics -> Chilling -> Memes, but rather the generic Home -> Communities (as in, all of them in aggregate) -> Technology Memes@lemmy.world. So yeah, it's a very new community, although !newtolemmy@lemmy.ca is older but the same happens with it too. Therefore I assume that it requires an admin approval to bundle these "Topics" together, and it definitely doesn't strike me as something that an individual user could put together.

Then again, someone (perhaps you? or me?) could send requests to the admin to add communities to topic areas, or perhaps modify the codebase directly if it were placed into a file and people granted access (whereupon once again, the admin would have to approve - although in this case a mechanism would also be needed to assess the differences and apply them).

Anyway, there's a LOT of polish that PieFed lacks, and this doesn't even crack the top half imho, next to things like user mentions (@openstars@piefed.social) and Notifications properly taking you to the actual thing that you are being notified about (a goodly fraction of the time it does not, right now.

On the other hand, Lemmy has no such thing as "Categories" or "Topics" of any kind so... anything that PieFed has along these lines is surely better than the nothing that exists in that regard there, right?

in reply to OpenStars

Thank you very much for taking the time to explain where things are at for folks!

I'll have to wait and see if an Android client that supports it shows up, it looks really neat!

in reply to Cris

You are most welcome:-).

An app? Apparently an API is in development for it, but it's still in alpha stage. Even so, there's a bunch of new features in PieFed that Lemmy does not have, such as Categories of Communities, so in some ways it would be a downgrade to use an app.

I just use Firefox to access PieFed.social, and it works fine. Well, mostly, bc even though PieFed has things that Lemmy lacks, it lacks some polish compared to the Lemmy web UI that has had more development work put into it. This is where an app would come in handy - if you didn't need all the new features that PieFed offers and just want Lemmy without the "Lemmy" part:-). (And didn't want to use Mbin, which iirc also lacks an API and thus ability to access via an app.)

Edit: One cool thing is that PieFed is written in Python rather than Rust, so the development process should move forward more quickly since more people know the former language while the latter is reportedly quite difficult. And another cool thing is that the developers are SUPER responsive:-).

This entry was edited (1 week ago)
in reply to OpenStars

Therefore I assume that it requires an admin approval to bundle these “Topics” together, and it definitely doesn’t strike me as something that an individual user could put together.


That's why I'm saying it's not personal multi communities, which is something people are definitely looking forward (most upvoted Lemmy GitHub issue)

I remember discussing personal multicommunities with @rimu@piefed.social a while ago, at the time it was not a priority for Piefed, maybe they'll revisit in the future.

in reply to Blaze (he/him)

Yeah I agree with their reasoning, since what is there now is pretty good, so it would be merely a refinement of an existing goodness, compared to so much else needing to done elsewhere e.g. making an API to allow existing apps to use PieFed in addition to Lemmy.
in reply to mesamune

Can I aggregate all threads that link to the same URL so I can view all comments on that URL in one page?

Ideally across all instances of mastodon and Lemmy and others?

This entry was edited (1 week ago)
in reply to mesamune

I actually don't like that feature cause it's not something the user chooses, it's up to the dev or admin (not sure which).
in reply to Chozo

And uses less data - helpful for using a mobile data plan. Those numbers shown in the article are all the more impressive even for sending 5x more posts on the home screen than Lemmy's default, even while still sending >4/5 less data - i.e. it's more like sending roughly only 1/25th the data per post, if I'm reading that right.
in reply to Droid

doesn't seem to have a good dark mode, i also use wefwef/voyager ,thunder and phtn instead of lemmy-ui so... any apps? also seemingly no community creation yet.
in reply to pewgar_sia

yep, it show's under 1 day on wefwef/voyager.

i think I'll still stay on lemmy.

in reply to pewgar_seemsimandroid

If you can find a lemmy trans flag theme that we can easily import, I'm all ears 😀
in reply to Ada

id assume creating your own would be easy but I don't manage a large lemmy instance so how would i know?
in reply to pewgar_sia

On my account I use the (dark) theme Card Shadow. I had an issue with it where I needed to disable the Dark Reader extension in Firefox. Lemmy ignored that but it actively messed up PieFed, though after disabling it, PieFed works perfectly for me.

piefed.social/communities has a create local and add remote buttons that look like they would create communities, though I did not text them out.

Edit: and the Create Local option has a "local only" checkbox, i.e. the default being to share the newly created community with Lemmy and Mbin instances via the ActivityPub protocol.

This entry was edited (1 week ago)
in reply to Droid

Interesting... I'm very happy with the instance I'm on and with Lemmy but if I decide to self host I might set up piefed instead.

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