As an #Asian myself, I'm happy to see that ideas, developers, and software from #Japan are going mainstream. There are a lot of things the West, and the world for that matter, can learn from Japan.
Not only from the Japanese, to be exact, even from #Korean made software. I talked about last year how #Korea created its own Internet culture that not even #Google and #Microsoft can compete with. (See: #Naver's amazing interconnected platforms; what Google would have been if they had a vision.)
UPDATE (2024-01-07 19:37 UTC+8): I was indeed mistaken. The dev is German, a country from Europe that has given us a lot of new science and technologies. ^_^
Pleroma itself also have a lot of forks, though not as much as #Misskey and #Mastodon. One such is #Rebased.
You can give the Rebased fork a try over at https://c.wtf featuring the #Soapbox frontend. (#DidYouKnow that the Soapbox frontend originally started as a custom frontend for Mastodon?)
#Streams galaxy
-- note 1: communication with the Fediverse is standard practice in this universe.
#Hubzilla galaxy
-- note 1: developed a way to communicate across the Mycelial Web (a.k.a. the multiverse). Can also communicate with BlueSky and diaspora.
#Friendica galaxy
-- note 1: developed a way to communicate across the Mycelial Web (a.k.a. the multiverse). Can also communicate with BlueSky and diaspora.
#X#Twitter Mycelium (closed borders; isolated; have not discovered there are other mycelium/universes besides their own)
#Tumblr Mycelium (closed borders; isolated; rumours has it their government decided against connecting with the other mycelium/universes, but they are aware)
#Flickr Mycelium (closed borders; isolated; aware of other mycelium/universes)
While the above examples can be used for images, Pixelfed was built for, well, images. It was made to cater for uploading photos ah sharing your digital artworks.
Meanwhile, Bookwyrm is best for, can you guess it? #Books! It features bookshelves where you can categorise your collection. You can also track your reading. Leave reviews. #Authors can too, if they want.
It's no different to comparing the old #Twitter vs #Facebook vs #Instagram vs #Goodreads. All of it can host photos and albums, but Instagram is focused on sharing images. Twitter for #microblogging. Facebook for socialising (or ads). Goodreads for books and reviews.
The difference? The latter are disconnected. While the former, the fediverse, are interoperable.
So… welcome to new users in the #Fediverse network!
If you are exploring the fediverse through the #Mastodon software, feel free to explore other platforms like #Streams#Calckey#Hubzilla#Friendica#Akkoma to mention a few, for your usual “status updates” (and more) UI/UX.
If you want a platform more focused on photos and images, then there is #Pixelfed. Or, you want bookshelves and tracking what you've read, or leaving #book reviews, there is #BookWyrm.
But the beauty of it all, all of these are connected to the fediverse. You can follow any user regardless of which software they are using; AND regardless which server (domain name) they signed-up for.