best app for lemmy?

Grimy@lemmy.world to Ask Lemmy@lemmy.world – 166 points –

The one I'm using is becoming so buggy to the point of being unusable. It was never really great tbh, what are most people using?

As an added question, are bookmarks associated with the lemmy account or the app?

Edit: I'm on android, currently using Jerboa.

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What OS? For iOS I’ve used quite a few and voyager has been the best of them all

I'm on android, forgot to mention it!

Well the good news is Voyager is available for both iOS and Android. Give it a shot, it’s a great FOSS app!

I'm on android, forgot to mention it!

Very happy with sync

I'm also on Sync, but there are a few things I'm unhappy with that have me looking at other apps.

First, the dev isn't active on Lemmy. He'll make an announcement post every few months and reply to comments for a couple of days before going radio silent again. I'm worried he'll abandon the app out of disinterest or low motivation, like he did for a year after his UI refresh wasn't well received back in the Reddit days.

Second, that inactivity extends to app development. Major, easily replicated bugs (like the crash on startup if you have "hide account names" enabled) linger for weeks to months without a patch. This also goes back to the Reddit days and isn't new behavior.

Finally, he puts basic app features behind a paywall with a much higher price than normal IAPs ($16/year or $99 to permanently enable them). This includes features that used to be free in Sync, like tagging users or color highlights. It also includes things that Lemmy already does for free, like backing up subscriptions (though that was only recently added to Lemmy, so he might move it to the basic app eventually). Just removing ads with no other benefits costs $20, which is more than any app I've ever used charges.

Whats that about backing up subscriptions? Haven't heard of that, what does it do and how do you use it?

I used sync on Reddit ages ago before switching to Boost. Both are pretty decent, but I prefer Boost here as well

I use voyager. It's good. FOSS btw

I just started using it the other day. Getting used to the gestures. Seems fine. Under active development so hopefully has a bright future.

I tried switching from Jerboa to Voyager, but I have the weirdst issue with Voyager. I use the back button at the bottom of my phone to go back from posts to the main list. Unfortunately, after using RIF for so long, or SOMETHING, I can't kick this habit where I press back too many times and the app closes, and I lose my place, and have to re-open and continue scrolling from the top. Maddening, and I don't know how to fix it. v.v

Eternity! Can't imagine using anything else at this point.

+1, I have tried Jerboa, Connect and now I'm on Eternity. Ticks all the boxes!

I've used connect, jerboa, thundar, sync, voyager, summit and liftoff. Eternity is the only one that works well for me without annoying bugs and has all the features that I need.

I used Infinity with Reddit, and now Eternity with Lemmy. Same interface, better platform. :)

I don't like the default behavior where I have to hold a comment to collapse the thread. Is there a way to change it to just a tap?

"Swap tap and long press" in gesture settings

Been using Eternity for quite some time. I like it, it's clean and modern, but I get a lot of bugs. Last week I couldn't see posts, then, I couldn't comment or save posts, and then posts were loading but I was seeing posts in communities I wasn't subscribed to. Sometimes logging out and logging in again helps.

Weird, the only annoying bug I'm getting is crossposting not working properly. Everything else seems to work fine.

Boost. One-time cheap payment to get rid of ads. No subscription like Sync (which is otherwise also a great app; it was not subscription based when it was available for Reddit).

I use Sync and don't pay anything. It's brilliant and the ads are basically invisible and rare.

Literally was the best Reddit app and it is a fantastic port to Lemmy.

You can choose to pay the dev if you want to. I haven't yet, but likely will if I spend more time here.

Sync has a one time payment to get rid of ads as well. The subscription is for cloud services, if you want that stuff. I didn't, so all I paid for was to remove ads.

Thanks, I had missed that! Still the price for Sync is way higher than what I paid for Boost. 🫤

I like Boost because when I revisit a post, all the new comments are highlighted.

Seconded for Boost. It also allows user tagging and it's actually pretty useful for the current size of community.

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Sync. Voyager was good too.

Shame Sync has a subscription-based model now to get rid of ads.

Subscription is for cloud based features (Ultra). It's a single payment to remove ads

Oh shiz, you're right. Still a bit of a heavy price compared to Boost.

Yeah that's what made me jump ship to Boost - I sincerely doubt that even if I used Sync for ten years, the value of the ad impressions I give would be worth A$35. I can basically buy a huge number of high-quality games for that amount.

You could buy a huge number of high quality games for A$35?

I'm switching between Thunder and Eternity, both still in development but already solid for me.

Bookmarks should be associated with your account

Thunder is probably the best for me so far (it has the ability to show upvotes/downvote the way I want).

I used Infinity for reddit back in the day and I see eternity is about to have a new release, so I might or might not switch to eternity.

Those two seem to be the best I've found.

I use Voyager. It gets updates fast but it looks like an iOS app. I rarely encounter any bugs here. Voyager also has mark read on scroll and disabling infinite scrolling (add a Load page 2 button) Sync is also good, it deals great with vertically long images and is a native app.

Sync has been really weird for the past few weeks, I stopped using it until there's an update (which hasn't happened before since several years ago when I started using it as a reddit app).

I'm currently on Boost, and it's at least usable, though not super great, but good enough for now.

There’s a setting to make it look like an Android app. It’s got a couple quirks, but it’s good enough.

I know, for me it looks ugly, I don't like the old Android UI (before Material You)

Also, I have no reason to use it if the iOS one looks better.

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Sync for Lemmy

Sync was my go-to Reddit app for nearly 9 years.

It does have ads, but with a one time purchase you can get rid of them. I've paid that and then I also plan on getting the subscription in the future for additional features.

The price is definitely a bit on the higher side, but I'm happy to support the development of the app I left Reddit for.

If you are able to, please support the apps and Lemmy instances you use.

Sync is the reason I'm here. For me, Sync was Reddit, and now, Sync is Lemmy.

Much like with Reddit years ago, with great apps like BaconReader and RIF, Lemmy is benefiting from having a huge choice of apps. Definitely try them all, and support the ones you like.

FOSS? Voyager, or maybe Eternity if you prefer something with a more native feel

Non-FOSS? Sync

Bookmarks should be "saved posts" and associated with your Lemmy account

Disclaimer: I use kbin 99% of the time.

That said, I love using Connect when I use Lemmy

Are there any kbin apps yet?

There was one, Artemis

It was developed prior to Kbin having a proper API for user interactions, and thus only worked on the developer's instance - which was running a modified Kbin version with some APIs implemented.

I believe it's all packed up shop now due to the developer's instance unexpectedly going offline, and possibly some IRL circumstances with the dev... more info here: https://wedistribute.org/2023/12/artemis-shuts-down/

That’s a bummer. I liked Artemis better than any of the Lemmy apps.

Sadly, no. One was in production and was pretty stable, but suffered performance issues (at least for me? But an S21 Ultra really shouldn't have performance issues) and now the Dev has gone inactive...

Tundra is another kbin app for Android. Not sure if it's also on iOS.

I am also a former Jerboa user and although I kinda liked it - the sole reason that I moved away from it was the lack of a proper search feature (It is already well-known that the Search bar in Jerboa is basically only for communities; Jerboa can't search for posts, comments or users.

I have lately been using Eternity - and the main reason is that Eternity is a fork of Infinity for Reddit, and Infinity was a complete app by its own merit - so although Eternity is not updated frequently, it is very unlikely that I will miss any essential feature in Eternity for Lemmy.

Just my 0.02.

The absolute bare minimum is to show text as it was written. Most of the apps don't even deal with formatting post correctly, so I am happy to stick with a browser.

If your app of choice does not display the following correctly, let the devs know via a bug report

Bold = Bold v. normal.
Italic = Italic v. normal.
Superscript = ^SuperScript^ v. normal.
Subscript = ~Subscript~ v. normal.
Strike-through = Strike-through v. normal.

I've tried Jerboa, Liftoff, and Connect. They all seem fine, but Connect is the one I stuck with.

I just switched from Liftoff because it hasn't received an update in 6 months and is now breaking. As of last week, it no longer opens the subbed list for me.

I tried Voyager and Connect. It looks like I may be sticking with Connect, as I'm way happier with how smooth it is and the fact that it's not harvesting my data like some of the more popular browsers.

Personally i use boost Because i used to use its reddit counterpart

Was super excited for Boost as I was a paid user

Then it came out and was missing many of the features of Connect

Came back to Connect and haven't looked back

What features? I am on Boost because it feels like home to me.

Same. Tried several others before Boost came out, and nothing felt right.

I'm also on Connect. Despite the fact that developer occasionally is a bit slow, I found nothing better. It was annoying to be locked out of my main server when they silently upgraded to 0.19 and Connect dev did not add support for it for several weeks.

That's a regular thing with Jerboa

I'm using Connect. It has its issues, but it's tolerable.

It has its issues, but it's tolerable.

Don't oversell it, now...

For iOS, I’ve been testing Arctic, Avelon, Bean, Lemma, Memmy, and Mlem. All good, but none seem better or more reliable than Voyager (wefwef).

I'll be that person and say I simp for sync. If you're hardcore FOSS though, you probably won't like it.

I'm quite happy with boost. I've used eternity before, and it's a pretty good one, too. Like someone else said, there are many apps, so it's a matter of preference. You're probably going to have to try out a few before you find one you like.

My rankings based on personal experience and nothing else:

  1. Boost
  2. Liftoff
  3. Thunder
  4. Connect
  5. Lemmotif
  6. Jerboa

I know Lemmy has a general preference for FOSS but Boost just feels like home, and the amount of ads on the free version is tolerable to me.

Thunder! It is

  • FOSS
  • Cross-platform (Android/iOS and you can even build for desktop or web)
  • Has some neat features that I haven't seen in other clients, like a really customizable FAB, material you theming, multiple anonymous instances, ping time and version info for instances, already supports 0.19 including new features like instance blocking, an advanced share that can create a microblog style image to share posts
  • Very good accessibility
  • and lots more.

Coming from Relay for Reddit, I feel very at home in Thunder!

Relay for Reddit is by far the best client I've used. Relay for Lemmy is basically wet dream material.

Since I haven't seen it mentioned yet, I've been using Liftoff for a while now, and I've found it to be a fairly good experience. My main annoyance is that, if I open a notification of a reply to a comment, the process to see the original context for the reply is...convoluted, to say the least. Other than that, great app.

Liftoff has not been updated in a while and I think it'll have issues with v0.19 (not exactly sure, read it in another thread)

I experimented with boost, sync and Voyager and I liked Voyager the most

Use to use sync a lot but I gotta say summit has been working really really well. The dev is active and has actually fixed a bug I posted about in their community.

I’m using Memmy for iOS. Works fine for me so far.

Also using Memmy. Every now and then I find a bug, but they end up getting patched pretty quickly. I used Apollo before I dropped Reddit, and Memmy feels familiar.

Eternity. It's based on Infinity for reddit

Had to switch from eternity back to sync because eternity wasn't loading comment threads or communities.

The one I’m using is becoming so buggy to the point of being unusable. It was never really great tbh, what are most people using?

It would probably help if you mentioned which app you are having issues with and what device you are using. I recently stopped using Jerboa because of login issues and started using Voyager. I find it's less of a smooth experience but some of the other bugs I had with Jerboa like back spacing removing the space before the previous word aren't present.

As an added question, are bookmarks associated with the lemmy account or the app?

Saved posts are linked with your account. If you login to your account in a web browser you should be able to find it under your profile followed by the saved section.

Ya it's jerboa, I didn't want to shoot them in the foot in case it's only me. It's also free, so I don't want to complain too much.

It keeps resetting my feed to local active after I scroll past a dozen posts. I do quite enjoy the feel of it though.

Interesting, I've been using jerboa since the great migration,and while it has had its moments, it's overall been a smooth and enjoyable ride. Early on I had an issue like you're describing with the sort types, but not in many versions. 0.0.55 is the latest play store version. Might be worth clearing data and cache and re-logging in if you are already on latest

Ha, I was going to say jerboa is my favorite so far.

I'm having a different experience, haven't had any bugs and the updates seem to add features/stability without introducing any bugs on my device, I'm also on Android.

What kind of things are making it unusable for you?

I'm considering switching too. When my instance updated to .19 or whatever Jerboa would crash if I tried to log in. It sorted itself out after a few days, but it was still a bummer that I couldn't upvote or save anything for three days.

It also randomly crashes on some posts. I've never been able to see a pattern because I am just instantly back at my phone's home screen. Once every two or three days there is a post that throws it off.

It also doesn't seem to handle network issues well. If my Internet goes out or my wifi is acting up my screen gets flooded with json errors.

Nothing major, but enough to make me interested in alternatives.

Dang, yea, I haven't had any of that. Are you using any special os or configuration?

Those seem like pretty major issues.

Does it have anything to do with which instance you're on?

I don't know anything technically actually, I'm just curious. I'm on s*** just works, and so far s*** has just worked even with clients.

I've tried most apps, but I'm perfectly OK with the Firefox on Android web experience for Lemmy.

I've had no complaints about it, it doesn't annoy me about downloading an app like most other mobile websites. So, sometimes, simplicity is best.

haven't seen any comments mentioning connect yet, so that would be my recommendation. by far the most fully featured and smooth lemmy app imo and its my favorite. I've used most other apps but I always come back to connect because of all the different ways I can customize it and all the settings I can change that I simply don't see in a lot of other apps.

I’m quite happy with Avelon

I like Avelon but the price is a bit steep for a brand new app and it’s really nerfed in the free version. I paid for a couple of months but right now I’m making it work with Voyager.

I’m using the free version. Other than the GIF scrubbing being missing idk what else I would need

I have tried a vast majority of them and there were many I like some features of, but they end up falling to the way side. I always go back to using, "Connect" For Lemmy. Has every thing I want.

Does connect have mark read on scroll? Seems that's missing from boost. :(

Agreed love connect. I can block both communities and specific people.

Getting rid of all the niche porn and junk articles from certain bots improved user experience a great deal.

Layout is reminiscent to reddit is fun which was my personal fave application. RIP.

I'm enjoying liftoff. I'm a former Relay user and this feels closest.

Sadly, Liftoff doesn't work with 0.19 and doesn't look like it's getting any further attention from it's developer.

Thanks for the heads up, trying Voyager now.

Give Thunder a shot as well. I have it customized to behave and look a lot like I had Relay.

For iOS the only one that can do swipe right to go back anywhere on the screen is LiftOff. It’s a crucial feature for me so there are sadly no alternatives.

I tried Sync, Boost and many others. They all feel bloated and some have ads. I went back to Jerboa and never looked back. I do miss some features from Sync. Like the advanced search function. But they'll probably come soon.

Raccoon for Lemmy came out in Early Access the other day and I'm checking that out to replace Liftoff, since it's unlikely Liftoff will get updated before most of the instances update to 0.19 and break the app.

Oh. That's why it hasn't been working.

mainly using Eternity and Summit. both are pretty amazing

Is there really the need for an app specifically for it?

I found that trying to access via FF on my Android would cause my cpu and data to peg out at 100% almost immediately. The phone would get hot and I could watch the battery % drop. I'm grateful for an app.

There's no "need" for it, but some give extra features that I find useful, such as post hiding and things like that.