When comparing Darto vs Lemmy, the Slant community recommends Lemmy for most people. In the question“What are the best Reddit alternatives?” Lemmy is ranked 2nd while Darto is ranked 17th. The most important reason people chose Lemmy is:
Anyone can self-host the software on their own server. Users can join an instance they like. You can view and comment on other servers (instances) as long as the instance you are on hasn't blocked the other instance.
Ranked in these QuestionsQuestion Ranking
Pros
Pro Similar to Reddit but with more features
Darto has a significant amount of features that reddit doesn't have, specifically made to improve the experience over reddit - a different approach to moderation, a larger importance on relationships, unique community customization global tags, other reactions, etc. Definitely worth checking out if you are interested in an alternative.
Pro Federated
Anyone can self-host the software on their own server. Users can join an instance they like.
You can view and comment on other servers (instances) as long as the instance you are on hasn't blocked the other instance.
Pro Simple and fast interface
Pro Open-source
Pro Shows both number of upvotes and number of downvotes, not just total
If someone has some unpopular opinion you can still see some people upvoted it and therefore appreciated it (so you can decide to read it).
Pro Problematic instances can be blocked
If the moderation of a certain instance is not good, other instances can block it.
Pro A rich ecosystem of third party clients and software
See the awesome lemmy github repo.
Cons
Con It's just an MSM arm
Con Slightly different design from the classic reddit
Reddit users won't be instantly familiar with the newer features that this platform has, and it takes a fair amount of time to get comfortable adjusting to it.
Con Pro-CCP, Chinese censorship and concentration camp deniers
Con Complicated to use
Some find it quite difficult to use. As each instance is seperate, it take a lot to get used to using it.
Con Slow and unreliable
Con A community of leftist privacy and FOSS enthusiasts, run by Lemmy’s developers
Politically biased platform, that they seem to be proud of.