Pixelfed, a decentralized alternative to Instagram, has launched its official mobile apps. The service today runs on the same ActivityPub protocol that powers an open source X alternative Mastodon, a YouTube competitor PeerTube, and other decentralized social apps, now including Meta’s Threads and Flipboard (plus its newer app, Surf), that are part of a growing push toward a more open social web known as the fediverse.
Pixelfed was originally developed in 2018 by Daniel Supernault, who also recently created the federated TikTok rival Loops. Similar to Instagram, Pixelfed allows users to share and explore photos and videos and send direct messages to others. However, very unlike Instagram, Pixelfed is ad-free, open source, decentralized, and defaults to chronological feeds — which are its selling points to users.
At a time when people would rather join another Chinese app than return to Meta if TikTok’s ban is upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court, Pixelfed’s apps stand a better chance at success as users try to distance themselves from Meta’s (no longer fact checked) social media.
To get started with Pixelfed, users can choose to join one of the community’s servers or self-host a Pixelfed instance, as with other federated apps.
Prior to Pixelfed’s mobile app debut, people could use Pixelfed via the web or through third-party mobile apps like Impressia. Now, the service offers its own official mobile apps for both Android and iOS, following their earlier beta tests.
The Android Pixelfed launched just ahead of Tuesday’s iOS app, and it only took two days to reach 10,000 downloads, Supernault noted on his Mastodon account. The app is also now the No. 1 Social app on Google Play in a number of markets, including the U.S.
He also said that 11,000 new users joined one of the top Pixelfed instances, pixelfed.social, over the past 24 hours. That server alone has seen over 78,000 posts on Tuesday alone.
The Pixelfed apps are free to use and do not collect any user data.
