Alt Forums

Have you ever used FreeBSD before? It's an open source version of BSD that was originally created by University of California, Berkeley. I never really wanted to dive into using FreeBSD, I'll just stick to Linux since it's easier to use. :P

https://www.freebsd.org/where/

I was wondering if it would benefit our community if I were to sign up for Forum Spark's premium service? It would add a blog feature to the community, which could be used for news based around alternatives or opinion pieces. Or do you think having the free version is good enough for the community and we should stick to using the forums to discuss updates? I'd love to hear your feedback on this!

I stumbled across another Reddit alternative just now called Otto.Talk. Looks like this one is Australia based since one of the top communities that people are subscribed to is a Australia based community. Though browsing through the community right now, it seems like people are just sharing links from external sites rather than having open conversations like you would on Reddit. Really odd, I'm not sure why I can't find threads created by members. If you want to check it out here's the link.

https://otto.talk/

Peertube is a decentralized video sharing platform that's part of the fediverse. You have to install your own instance if you want to create a channel, which might put off some people from trying it out. You'll also need to have a VPS rather than shared hosting to install it too. I've been wanting to try it out at some point, but I currently don't have the funds to get a VPS again. Have you ever messed around with Peertube?

https://joinpeertube.org/

I typically plan to go out with friends because it's the best way to unwind after a busy week. We grab lunch somewhere, go shopping or just hang out somewhere nice. But sometimes I prefer to spend my time at home spend my weekend with my family.

How about you? Do you prefer spending weekends with friends or do you like having quiet time alone?

I figured I would make a thread for Kick, even though it's pretty popular these days. It was also founded only a few years ago so it's crazy to see that it's popular. Anyways Kick is known to have lax moderation when compared to other streaming sites like Twitch. I'm sure this is why it's popular, people who were banned on Twitch probably ended up moving over to Kick. Do you use Kick?

https://kick.com/

I just wanted to say that I really like the bright, new, shiny Theme. It's clean and easy to read. It really brightens up the site.

What do you like to do outdoors? Do you like camping? Do you like hiking? Feel free to tell us some stories and plans for the spring or fall of 2026, depending on what hemisphere.

What blog software you into? What do you like? Where did you discover it and how long have you used it? What are reasons for whatever that has been asked in this thread?

https://blog.mybb.com/2025/12/22/warm-up-to-mybb-1-9/

I admit, I dissed MyBB in one post on here. But I used to be a big fan and I want it to come back. I think it will come back with MyBB 1.9, whenever it finally goes online.

Is anyone else excited? Why is that the case?

Yeah back when GIMP was first released in 1995, it was called "The GIMP." Anyways this is a free photo manipulation software. It's similar to Photoshop, but it was made with Linux in mind. You can of course get it on Windows too, so it's not just a Linux based software. Have you ever used this alternative photo app?

What sort of software do you like of this type? Well, some plugins that come to mind are bbPress and wpForo. Who has played around with them as a user or admin?

Your free blog and forum software (WordPress, SMF, MyBB, phpBB etc.) can be installed with Softalicious or something similar. Who has done that? Do you prefer to do it that way, or do you prefer doing it the more difficult way? What benefits do you see in each way?

With this software, an installation system like Softalicious isn't even necessary. It would be forum software like Forum Spark (this one), Jcink, Forumotion etc.. Do you like this stuff? Have you used it as an admin and have you been a member on such software, aside from Forum Spark?

I wonder how many people forgot this platform exists? It's been around for a long time now, in fact people used to be able to upload full episodes of shows since they were being flagged on Youtube. It's also only a month younger than Youtube, to think Dailymotion could have been what Youtube is now! Do you ever use Dailymotion?

https://www.dailymotion.com/us

IDK if that's what you intended to do with this theme or what but to me it looks ugly.

IDK if you can directly edit CSS on here but if you can, then do this

.panel__footer{height:1rem;border:1px solid var(--fs-panel-border,#e2e8f0);border-top:none;border-bottom:2px solid var(--fs-panel-footer-accent,#6366f1);background-image:linear-gradient(to top,var(--fs-panel-footer-from,#5e81ac),var(--fs-panel-footer-to,#5e81ac));}

It's just the same color #5e81ac which is used on the title headers but on that last gradient on background-image

This is another video hosting platform but this one is very limited. You can only upload a video that's between 1kb and 100mb and the video can't exceed 2 hours. I'm hoping they will eventually upgrade their servers so you can upload larger videos. One thing I like about Glomble is that you can customize the look of your channel, like you used to be able to do on Youtube! Here it is if you want to check it out. But seeing how the first video listed is "Test User" and the video length exceeds the current limit, there's a chance this could be increasing soon!

https://glomble.com/

https://vanillo.tv/

Some things I don't like of it is that it doesn't have a page to see recently uploaded content, the feed seems like it's always the same and IDK if it's me but for some reason the quality selector on the player is gone (IDK if they fixed that or what).

Sup nerds! Smokey here. :-)

https://fluxer.app/

I never tried it, but a lot of people say it's great and that it will support self-hosting and federation in the future (well you can actually self-host as it's open-source but it's currently buggy, undocumented and also requires to do a bunch of steps even if there's Docker images out there for that as updates breaks some other stuff). I hope that happens so I can stop using and self-hosting Matrix as it's so complicated, confusing and because I don't like the few clients that has and even for Android.

https://spacebar.chat/

Formerly known as "Fosscord", I think it was created in 2020, though it didn't really take off until around 2021 when it was crossposted on Hacker News and on a bunch of subreddits and then faded into obscurity until now, thanks to Discord and its ID BS.

In short, it's a reverse-engineering project to how Discord works. You can also host your own instance (without federation), but it requires to follow a lot of steps (most of them are optional if you don't have plans to make a big/public instance), though you can just use Docker (docker-compose) to avoid too much hassle (last time I tried making my own instance I was getting errors while setting a PostgreSQL DB and I ended up giving up lol). And I think it's almost 1:1 to Discord's API so I think you can migrate your Discord bots you made on Discord.JS for example to Spacebar without having to do so much changes.

There's also a public instance for it but it requires using a client to connect on it. Seems like the most recommended one is Fermi, which has a similar aspect to Discord.

And well, as is usually the case with this kind of projects, don't expect a very stable experience.

Hey everyone I've added some new features to Alt Forums! First off I've added emoticons to the forum, if there's any more you feel like we need please let me know and I'll add them! They came from OpenMoji, if you're looking for a free opensource place to get emoticons or reaction images I highly recommend them! Here's the link to their website:
https://openmoji.org/
I've also added some reactions to the forum, the images also came from OpenMoji. Again if there's any reactions you want to see please let me know. Finally a new section has been added to the forum as well, a place to discuss alternative operating systems! This is for operating systems that are not Windows, Mac, iOS, or Android! Once I get paid I plan on getting a domain name for Alt Forums as well, so be on the lookout for that too. Thank you all for joining Alt Forums. :)

https://nerimity.com

As mentioned on #123

Honestly my favorite Discord clone/alt. It has custom text colors, full profile/theme customization, it has those old Discord tags/discriminators on names, webhooks, Android app and other stuff. It also has a Twitter-like thing to post content and a feed for it but I don't care about it and I never used it (well only once just to say why no one made a server for talking about retro stuff yet).

Some downsides:

1. NSFW is not allowed on the entire platform (IDK if I should mention this but more than a few people will find it annoying bruh)

2. You cannot upload attachments on private servers unless you donate or make your server public (but you can "bypass" this by uploading stuff on DMs and then copypasting the link of it to the server lol)

Anyways, I only use it for DM with my friend since I joined in 2025 as I was tired to find a better Discord clone that doesn't look so incomplete and I ended up using this instead (it was a time before Fluxer existed and Revolt would wake up with development).

How would you compare it to other forum software? How long have you used it? Is there anyone just considering using it?

Well, one problem is that perhaps people cannot make money using the software. It might be against the rules and/or there might not be a way to implement ads etc., even if you wanted to add them. Do you see that as a problem?