Ethical alternatives to Facebook

The short answer

No single app replaces Facebook, because Facebook is really 6 apps in one: a feed of friends and family, groups, events, Marketplace, Messenger and photos. The best Facebook alternatives each take over one of those jobs, and they’re funded by donations, subscriptions or memberships, so the bills get paid without selling your attention to advertisers.

Below are our picks for each job, a short comparison table per job, and a way to leave Facebook without losing your photos or your people. Move one job at a time; there’s no rush.

Our picks

• Friends and family: Mastodon, a nonprofit, ad-free network. Or Bluesky if that’s where your friends already went.
• Family photos: Ente Photos. End-to-end encrypted shared albums and family plans, with 10 GB free.
• Groups: Hylo for local and purpose-driven groups, or Discourse for clubs and organisations.
• Events: Mobilizon. Nonprofit, federated public events, with no account needed to view them.
• Marketplace: Craigslist for selling locally, Buy Nothing (US) or Freegle (UK) for giving things away.
• Messenger and WhatsApp: Signal, or Delta Chat if you’d rather not give out a phone number.
• Photos and short video: Pixelfed for an Instagram-style feed, Loops for short video.

Compared, job by job

Everything here was checked on 13 October 2026. “New” marks services added in this update. Each name links to its write-up below, where the trade-offs live; the cells only say Yes, No or Partly so you can scan.

Friends and family

Name	Run by	No ads	Open source	No algorithmic feed	Protocol	Price
Mastodon	Nonprofit, donation funded	Yes	Yes	Yes	ActivityPub	Free
Bluesky New	Venture-backed benefit corporation	Yes, none today	Yes	Partly, optional Discover feed	AT Protocol	Free
Friendica	Volunteers, no company	Yes, none found	Yes	Yes, none found	ActivityPub and more	Free
Diaspora New	Volunteers, no company	Yes, none found	Yes	Yes, none found	diaspora	Free
Micro.blog New	Founder-owned, subscription funded	Yes	No	Yes	ActivityPub, IndieWeb	From $5/month

Family photos

Name	Run by	End-to-end encrypted by default	Open source	No ads	Free plan	Cheapest paid plan
Ente Photos New	Subscription-funded company	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes, 10 GB	$2.49/month, 50 GB

Groups

Name	Run by	No ads	Open source	Hosted for you	Price
Hylo New	Terran Collective	Yes	Yes	Yes	Free
Discourse New	Venture-backed US company	Partly, owner’s choice	Yes	Yes, free plan	Free plan, paid tiers
Lemmy New	2 donation-funded developers	Yes	Yes	Yes, pick a server	Free
Hubzilla New	Member association	Yes, none found	Yes	Yes, public servers	Free
Movim New	One volunteer maintainer	Yes, none found	Yes	Yes, mov.im	Free
Flarum New	Volunteers, foundation held	Yes, none built in	Yes	No, self-hosted	Free software
MyBB New	Volunteers	Yes, none found	Yes	No, self-hosted	Free software

Events

Name	Run by	No ads	Open source	Protocol	Price
Mobilizon New	French nonprofit association	Yes	Yes	ActivityPub	Free

Marketplace

Name	Best for	Run by	No ads	Open source	Price
Craigslist New	Selling locally, strongest US	Private US company	Yes, no trackers either	No	Most listings free
Buy Nothing New	Giving away, strongest US	Public benefit corporation	Yes	No	Free, paid tier optional
Freegle New	Giving away, UK	UK charity, volunteers	No, personalised ads	Yes	Free

Messaging

Name	Run by	End-to-end encrypted by default	No phone number needed	Open source	Federated or peer-to-peer	Price
Signal	Nonprofit, donation funded	Yes	No, number required	Yes	No, central service	Free
Delta Chat	Community project, grant funded	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes, email relays	Free
Element New	Venture-backed UK company	Partly, private chats only	Yes	Yes, almost all	Yes, Matrix	Free for personal use
Conversations New	Independent developer	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes, XMPP	Free on F-Droid
Briar New	Volunteers, past grants	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes, peer-to-peer	Free
Jami New	Montreal company plus donations	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes, peer-to-peer	Free
Tox	Volunteers only	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes, peer-to-peer	Free
Threema New	Private equity owned, 2026	Yes	Yes	Partly, apps only	No	$6 one-off
SimpleX Chat New	Small UK startup	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes, relay network	Free
Olvid New	French company, freemium	Yes	Yes	Partly, apps only	No	Free tier

Photos and video

Name	Run by	No ads	Open source	No algorithmic feed	Protocol	Price
Pixelfed	Lead developer plus donations	Yes	Yes	Yes, Discover is separate	ActivityPub	Free
Loops New	One developer, donations	Yes	Yes	Partly, For You ranked	ActivityPub	Free
mltshp New	Nonprofit, member funded	Yes, none found	Yes	Partly, Popular page exists	None	From $3/year

Why people leave Facebook

The business model is advertising built on your data. In April 2025 the European Commission fined Meta €200 million under the Digital Markets Act because its “consent or pay” model gave EU users no option that used less of their personal data. Meta also says it trains its AI on public posts shared by adults (14 April 2025, EU users can object), and that from 16 December 2025 it uses your chats with its AI features to personalise content and ads.

The privacy record is long and documented. After Cambridge Analytica harvested data on up to 87 million people (Facebook’s own figure, April 2018), the FTC imposed a $5 billion penalty and a 20-year privacy order in July 2019. In May 2023, Ireland’s Data Protection Commission fined Meta €1.2 billion over transfers of EU users’ data to the US.

Myanmar, in the UN’s own words. The UN fact-finding mission on Myanmar wrote in its September 2018 report that “Facebook has been a useful instrument for those seeking to spread hate, in a context where, for most users, Facebook is the Internet”, and that the company’s response was “slow and ineffective”. It called for senior generals to be investigated for genocide. Facebook itself said “we were too slow to act” when it banned 20 people and organisations in August 2018.

The people who clean the feed. In 2019 The Verge reported US contract moderators reviewing up to 400 posts a day for $28,800 a year, against an average of $240,000 for direct Facebook staff. In Kenya, moderators have been suing Meta and its contractor since 2022 over trauma and dismissals; Kenya’s Court of Appeal ruled in September 2024 that Meta can be sued there, and the cases are still running (timeline updated 12 October 2026).

Mental health. A 2022 study of Facebook’s college roll-out found it “increased symptoms of poor mental health, especially depression”. On 26 August 2026, Meta agreed to pay up to $17.1 billion over 10 years to 51 US attorneys general, with new limits for under-18s including a 2-hour default daily limit and an optional non-algorithmic feed. Meta denies the allegations.

Fact-checking ended in the US. As Meta announced it on 7 January 2025: “Starting in the US, we are ending our third party fact-checking program and moving to a Community Notes model.”

Dominance. A US judge ruled on 18 November 2025 that the FTC hadn’t proved Meta holds monopoly power, and the FTC is appealing (January 2026). The EU found Meta dominant in personal social networks in November 2024 and fined it €797.72 million for tying Marketplace to Facebook. Dominant is the fair word.

How we choose

We check every alternative against the 6 principles in our manifesto: who owns it and how it makes money, what it collects, how it treats people, how honest it is, whether it’s open and interoperable, and whether it’ll still exist in 3 years. Anything owned by Meta or Microsoft, or funded mainly by surveillance advertising, is out. How we work has the details.

Renting servers from a Big Tech cloud counts as a trade-off, and we say so plainly on the page: Signal rents capacity from Amazon, Google and Microsoft too, and says so openly. Inclusion is never paid for, and this page has no affiliate links.

The alternatives

Same order as the tables. Each entry says what it is, who runs it and how it makes money, then the trade-off. There’s more in our social media and messaging directories.

For friends and family. These replace the feed itself. They all work best when a few people you know come along.

Mastodon

A network of thousands of independent servers that all talk to each other, with a chronological feed and no ads. It’s run by a nonprofit funded by donations and sponsors, which began moving the project to a new foundation in 2025, and the code is open source. It had 731,847 monthly active people across 7,360 servers on 13 October 2026 (Mastodon’s own statistics). The flagship server’s terms ban scraping posts for AI training (July 2025); other servers set their own terms.

The trade-off: you pick a server, and that server’s admins set the rules. If you move servers later, your followers come with you but your old posts don’t. Free.

Bluesky

The big public feed, with over 44 million users as of May 2026, built on the open AT Protocol with account portability. There are no ads today, its privacy policy (August 2025) says it doesn’t sell or share personal data to show ads, and it said in November 2024 it won’t train generative AI on your posts, though it can’t stop outside crawlers. The app is open source and it plans to earn from optional subscriptions.

The trade-off: it’s a venture-funded company with $115 million raised in 2 rounds, both led by crypto-focused funds, and that money will want a return eventually. ToS;DR grades its terms E. It’s also public by default, so it suits following friends and news better than private family photos. Free.

Friendica

The fediverse option that looks most like Facebook: long posts, circles, events and groups. There’s no company or foundation behind it, just volunteers, and it’s the most interoperable entry here: it speaks ActivityPub and the diaspora protocol, and reads and posts to Bluesky and Tumblr.

The trade-off: it’s small (18,587 users on 80 servers, FediDB, 13 October 2026) and volunteer-run, so pick a server that’s clearly maintained, and expect a plainer interface than Facebook’s. Free.

Diaspora

The original “Facebook alternative”, a volunteer-run network of pods with no company behind it. It’s still maintained (a security release in April 2026), open source and ad-free.

The trade-off: it’s small and slow-moving, and its own protocol can’t talk to Mastodon, so Friendica covers the same ground with more reach. Free.

Micro.blog

A paid blogging and social service from founder Manton Reece, running since 2017. The feed is “always chronological. There are no trends, no ads, no boosts”, there are no like or follower counts, exports are generous, and it cross-posts to Mastodon and Bluesky over open standards.

The trade-off: it costs from $5 a month (13 October 2026), the service itself is closed source, and its optional AI photo search sends your images to OpenAI when you switch it on.

For family photos. The question behind most leaving-Facebook conversations: where do the photos of the kids go?

Ente Photos

End-to-end encrypted photo storage with shared albums and family plans (up to 5 people share one plan’s storage, per its F-Droid listing). It’s open source, funded by subscriptions, and publishes its business numbers openly: 21,807 paying customers on 13 October 2026. 10 GB is free forever; 50 GB costs $2.49 a month (13 October 2026).

The trade-off: its terms include US-style arbitration clauses (ToS;DR grade D). It advertises public album links, but we haven’t tested whether relatives can view one without an account.

For groups. Hylo suits local and purpose-driven groups, Discourse suits organisations, Lemmy suits public interest communities, and the rest suit people happy to run their own.

Hylo

The closest thing to Facebook Groups built on ethical terms: discussions, events, offers and requests, projects and proposals, with “no ads, no algorithm” and no tracking. It’s open source, built by Terran Collective, and free for every group, forever, with paid products for groups that need more.

The trade-off: it’s small and young, who funds the core team isn’t clear, and it’s built for groups that organise together; your family’s group chat probably stays where it is.

Discourse

The standard open-source forum for clubs, schools and organisations, with a free hosted plan with unlimited members and over 22,000 communities. The code is GPL, so you can take your forum and self-host it any time; ToS;DR grades it B.

The trade-off: it’s a venture-backed US company (a $20 million round in 2021), hosted plans come with a growing set of AI features, and a forum’s owner can choose to switch on ads through a plugin.

Lemmy

Federated, Reddit-style communities with “no advertising and no user tracking” and transparent moderation logs. It’s funded only by donations (2,011 supporters covering 38% of its target on its donate page, 13 October 2026), and had 504,068 accounts across 409 servers (FediDB, 13 October 2026).

The trade-off: it’s volunteer-run and under-funded, and servers differ a lot in focus and moderation, so pick a general-purpose one from join-lemmy.org’s server list. Free.

Hubzilla

Channels, groups, shared files and calendars in one federated package, backed by a member-funded association founded in 2023, with regular releases (11.4.1 in September 2026).

The trade-off: powerful but fiddly, and small (9,016 users, FediDB, 13 October 2026). Best for someone running a community site, less so for keeping up with family. Free.

Movim

A social network and chat client on the open XMPP standard, maintained for 15 years by its creator in his spare time and funded by donations. Open source, with a release in September 2026.

The trade-off: one main developer, and your friends need XMPP accounts too. Free.

Flarum

Modern forum software, built entirely by volunteers under a foundation, with version 2.0 shipped on 9 October 2026. The trade-off: it’s software, so someone in your group has to host it.

MyBB

Forum software that’s been run by volunteers for 20 years, with security releases continuing (September 2026). The trade-off: an older-style forum you host yourself.

For events. One honest gap first: we found no ethical option yet for private party invites, the job Partiful does. The invite apps we checked load ad and analytics trackers. For public events, there’s a good answer.

Mobilizon

Federated events and groups, started by the French nonprofit Framasoft in 2019 and maintained since 2024 by Kaihuri, another French nonprofit, with NLnet support. People can see an event without an account. Open source, on ActivityPub, with 97,210 accounts across 134 servers (FediDB, 13 October 2026).

The trade-off: it’s run by a small volunteer association. Pick an instance near you, or ask a local group to host one. Free.

For Marketplace. Facebook bundles 2 jobs here: selling secondhand locally and giving things away. Giving away is covered. Selling is where ethical options run thin, and we’ll say that plainly: we couldn’t find a co-op or nonprofit selling marketplace working at scale in the US or UK. Every selling app we checked (OfferUp, Vinted, Gumtree, eBay, Nextdoor) runs advertising or tracking code. Craigslist is the exception, and it’s a private company that doesn’t publish its finances.

Craigslist

Running since 1995, and the only big local marketplace we found with no ads and no marketing trackers: its privacy policy says it runs no ads beyond users’ own classifieds, uses no marketing trackers, sells no data and even bans affiliate marketing, and our own check of its pages (13 October 2026) found a single first-party script. It earns from posting fees in a few categories, mostly US job ads and dealer listings; selling your own sofa is free.

The trade-off: it’s a private US company that doesn’t say who owns it or what it earns (press reports point to its founder and CEO), it’s closed source, and it ignores Do Not Track (ToS;DR grade C). It has pages for 27 UK areas, but we haven’t measured how busy they are. Read its safety tips: meet somewhere public and never pay in advance.

Buy Nothing

A gift economy for giving and getting free things from neighbours, run by a public benefit corporation claiming 14 million members in over 50 countries. Its privacy policy promises no advertising cookies and no sale of personal data, and our own check found no ad or tracking scripts. The app is free, with an optional Pro tier at $69.99 a year since June 2026.

The trade-off: it’s closed source and US-centred, an earlier push to raise investor money split parts of the community, and many local Buy Nothing groups still run on Facebook, so check your area has an app group.

Freegle

A UK charity, run by volunteers and open source, for giving things away locally instead of binning them.

The trade-off, said plainly: the site shows personalised advertising. Its consent banner listed 1,034 advertising partners when we checked on 13 October 2026, and we don’t know how much of its income the ads bring in. If you’d rather avoid that, give through a local Buy Nothing group where one exists.

One more line for the fediverse-curious: flohmarkt is open-source, federated marketplace software with no ads, built to keep trades local, and it’s tiny and mostly German so far (27 listed servers, 2 in the UK, none in the US, 13 October 2026).

For messaging. The hard part is people, so the best alternative is the one your family will actually install. For most people that’s Signal.

Signal

A nonprofit funded by donations, with no investors, where everything, groups included, is end-to-end encrypted by default. Its published subpoena responses show how little it holds: in its latest case (March 2026), all it could hand over was an account’s creation date and last connection date. Apps and server are open source. An optional paid backup plan costs $1.99 a month (September 2025).

The trade-off: you need a phone number to sign up, though usernames can hide it from other people. It rents server capacity from Amazon, Google and Microsoft, which it’s open about; content stays encrypted. Free.

Delta Chat

A chat app that runs over the email network, with no phone number needed: you get a randomly generated address on a relay server. On the default relays “it is impossible to receive or send messages without end-to-end encryption”. It’s open source, federated, funded by public grants with no venture capital, and releases every few weeks.

Worth knowing: writing to an ordinary email address only works if that address is used exclusively by chat apps like this one, so treat it as a messenger, with email as the plumbing. Free.

Element

The friendliest app for the open, federated Matrix network (it used to be called Riot.im). Private conversations have been end-to-end encrypted by default since May 2020, no phone number is needed, and nearly all the code is open source under AGPL.

The trade-off: Element is a venture-backed company whose big paying customers are governments and defence ministries, NATO among them, and public rooms aren’t encrypted. The Matrix network itself is looked after by a UK nonprofit foundation that said in February 2025 it covered only half its budget. Free for personal use.

Conversations

An XMPP app from an independent developer, paid for by app sales, with encryption on by default for one-to-one chats and private groups (public groups aren’t encrypted). ToS;DR grades it A, its best grade.

The trade-off: Android only, and you need an account on an XMPP server, which is one more decision than most people want. Free on F-Droid.

Briar

A messenger that works without the internet, over Bluetooth, Wi-Fi or Tor, with messages stored only on your phone. ToS;DR grades it A.

The trade-off: the team has been in maintenance mode with no funding since July 2026, making only security fixes. It’s Android for most people and heavy on battery. Best for protests and places with patchy or censored internet. Free.

Jami

A GNU project: peer-to-peer, end-to-end encrypted including group chats, and no phone number, email or personal information needed to create an account.

The trade-off: it’s kept going by one Montreal software company, Savoir-faire Linux, plus donations. Free.

Tox

A volunteer peer-to-peer messenger with encryption as “the default and only mode of operation”, no servers, no company and no money involved, revived with new releases in 2026.

The trade-off: your contacts can see your IP address, and it’s run purely by volunteers, so it’s too rough around the edges for most families. Free.

Threema

A Swiss messenger with no ads, no profiling and servers in Switzerland, paid for once: $6 one-off (13 October 2026). The apps are open source and no phone number is needed.

The trade-off: a German private equity firm agreed to buy it in January 2026, so it’s worth watching for changes. There’s no federation, so everyone you talk to needs the app.

SimpleX Chat

The most private messenger on this list: it has no user ID of any kind, no phone number, nothing. It’s open source, runs over independent relay servers, and has been audited by Trail of Bits in 2022 and 2024.

The trade-off: it’s a small startup that hasn’t started earning yet and is raising money through equity crowdfunding, and adding contacts works a slightly unusual way. Best for people who want maximum privacy and don’t mind that. Free.

Olvid

A French messenger that needs no phone number, email or personal data to sign up, holds 2 security certifications from ANSSI, France’s cybersecurity agency, and open-sources its apps. French ministers were told to install it in 2023. Free tier forever, with premium at €4.99 a month (13 October 2026).

The trade-off: messages are end-to-end encrypted, but the relay servers are rented from Amazon Web Services.

For photos and short video. The Instagram and Reels jobs.

Pixelfed

The Instagram alternative: “ad-free and privacy friendly”, with chronological feeds, open-source code and federation over ActivityPub, so Mastodon users can follow you. It’s funded by donations, grants and crowdfunding, and had 1,193,887 users across 665 servers (FediDB, 13 October 2026).

The trade-off: a small team carried mostly by one developer, and about half the users sit on the flagship server, so pick another one if you want real spread. Free.

Loops

Short video from Pixelfed’s developer, donation-funded with no ads, federated so videos reach Mastodon and Pixelfed too. The Following feed is chronological.

The trade-off: it’s still in beta and small (47,658 accounts on 25 servers, FediDB, 13 October 2026), it’s largely one person’s project, and its For You tab is ranked by engagement. Free.

mltshp

An image-sharing community owned by a nonprofit and funded by members, from $3 a year to post (13 October 2026), with open-source code and no trackers that we found.

The trade-off: it’s a tiny, US-centred community for sharing fun images, and it won’t carry your family updates.

One more for a specific need: Hyphanet, renamed from Freenet in 2023, is peer-to-peer publishing that can’t be taken down. It’s slow, technical and niche, built for publishing under censorship rather than chatting with family, and still releasing after 27 years.

Apps Meta also owns

A lot of “Facebook alternatives” people suggest belong to the same company, and anything Meta owns is excluded here automatically, whatever its features. That’s a red line in our manifesto, because leaving Facebook for another Meta app changes nothing about who holds your data.

• Instagram. Meta since 2012; funded by advertising, and ToS;DR grades it E.
• WhatsApp. Your chats are end-to-end encrypted, but the app has carried ads in its Updates tab since June 2025, and it belongs to the company you’re leaving.
• Messenger. Fair’s fair: personal chats have been end-to-end encrypted by default since December 2023. It’s still part of Meta’s advertising business.
• Threads. Meta’s Twitter-style app has shown ads in all markets since late January 2026.

Why some popular options aren’t on this list

• Telegram. Most chats aren’t end-to-end encrypted: only one-to-one “Secret Chats” are, never groups, and cloud chats sit on Telegram’s servers. Since September 2024 its privacy policy allows it to disclose your IP address and phone number on a valid court order, and it fulfilled 900 US requests covering 2,253 users in 2024. Public channels carry ads.
• X. Funded by ads and subscriptions, its privacy policy (effective January 2026) lets your posts train AI models, and it’s been owned by SpaceX via xAI since February 2026. Our Twitter alternatives guide covers leaving it.
• LinkedIn. Owned by Microsoft since 2016, and since November 2025 it trains generative AI on UK and EU members’ data by default, with an opt-out.
• Reddit. About 95% of its revenue came from advertising in Q2 2026, and it licenses users’ posts to Google and OpenAI for AI training.
• Discord. Fine for gaming groups, but text chats aren’t end-to-end encrypted, it’s venture-backed and filed for a stock market listing in January 2026, and a 2025 breach at a support vendor exposed about 70,000 users’ ID photos.
• Nextdoor. Its own filings describe essentially all of its revenue as advertising; ToS;DR grades it E.
• Snapchat and TikTok. Both are funded by advertising per their own filings and policies, and both carry ToS;DR grade E. TikTok’s US business moved into a joint venture in January 2026 in which ByteDance keeps 19.9%.
• BeReal. Owned by games publisher Voodoo since 2024; its privacy policy (June 2026) describes targeted ads built partly on interests inferred from your photos.
• MeWe. Our old guide recommended it for having no ads or boosting. It now sells in-feed ads from $5 a day and lets users boost posts with a crypto token, so it’s out.
• OfferUp, Vinted and Gumtree. OfferUp is venture-backed and shares a hashed copy of your email with ad partners, which its own policy says may count as selling your data. Vinted is backed by private equity and its pages run ad-exchange code (ToS;DR D). Gumtree runs a full advertising stack and has been owned since 2024 by investors it doesn’t name on its site.

Leaving Facebook without losing your photos and contacts

These steps were checked against Meta’s own help pages on 13 October 2026. Meta is moving people to “Meta Accounts”, so your menus may say Accounts Center or Meta Account.

1. Export everything first. Profile picture, then Settings & privacy, Settings, Meta Account, Your information and permissions, Export your information. Choose HTML to browse your archive, or JSON to move it elsewhere. The files stay available for only 4 days, and you can’t export from a profile already scheduled for deletion, so do this before anything else.
2. Tell people where to find you. Pin a post with your new addresses (Mastodon or Bluesky handle, Signal) and give it a couple of weeks.
3. Move your logins. After deletion you can’t use Facebook Login for other apps; Meta names Spotify and Pinterest. Switch those accounts to email logins first. If you use the same profile for Meta Quest, deleting it deletes your Quest purchases and store credit, and Pages only you control go too.
4. Keep Messenger a few weeks while family and friends make the jump, since deleting your Facebook profile removes Messenger with it.
5. Then delete. Settings, Meta Account, Deactivation or deletion. You have about 30 days to change your mind (Meta says the number varies by region), and logging back in cancels the request. Removing your posts can take up to 90 days, and Meta says some backup copies may remain after that.

Tracking after you leave. Facebook can still see some of your activity on other sites and apps. Its old “Your activity off Meta technologies” control is being withdrawn (announced June 2026) and replaced by a setting called “Activity from other businesses”; the menu is changing, so check Meta’s help page for the current steps. On an iPhone, Settings, Privacy & Security, Tracking, then turn off “Allow Apps to Request to Track”. On Android, Settings, Privacy, Ads, then Delete advertising ID.

Leaving more of Big Tech? Our Google alternatives guide works the same way as this one.

For organisations and group admins

If you run a Facebook group or page for a club, charity or community, the strongest moves are Discourse for a proper forum (free hosted plan, and you can self-host later), Hylo for coordination, offers and proposals, and Mobilizon for public events people can see without an account.

Add a plain email newsletter. It reaches every member directly, and no feed decides who sees it.

Questions people ask

Is Bluesky better than Facebook?

For a public feed, mostly yes: no ads today, an open protocol you can take your account out of, and a public promise (November 2024) that it won’t train generative AI on your posts. It’s still venture-funded, led by crypto-focused investors, and graded E by ToS;DR, and it’s public by default. For private family sharing, Ente and Signal do that job better than either.

Is Telegram private?

Ordinary and group chats sit on Telegram’s servers without end-to-end encryption; only one-to-one Secret Chats have it. Since September 2024 Telegram can hand over your IP address and phone number on a valid court order, and did so for thousands of users in 2024. Signal encrypts everything by default.

Where can I share photos with family privately?

Ente Photos: end-to-end encrypted shared albums, 10 GB free, family plans. For day-to-day photo chat, a Signal group does the same job with zero setup.

What replaces Facebook Marketplace?

For selling, Craigslist: no ads, and most personal listings are free. For giving away, Buy Nothing in the US or Freegle in the UK. If you’re on Mastodon, look for a flohmarkt server near you. There’s no co-op or nonprofit selling marketplace at scale yet, and we’ll update this page when one appears.

Will my family actually install Signal?

Some will, some won’t, and that’s fine. Start with one group chat, the one you’d miss most, and invite people there; it’s free, it looks like WhatsApp, and they don’t have to share their number thanks to usernames. Keep Messenger running for a few weeks so everyone stays reachable while they move.

Know an alternative we’ve missed?

Suggest it here. We check every suggestion against the same 6 principles. To hear when we re-check this guide, join our newsletter.

Sources

Checked on 13 October 2026. Prices, user counts and claims about each alternative come from the pages linked in its entry above.

1. European Commission, Meta fined €200 million under the Digital Markets Act, 23 April 2025.
2. Meta, AI training on public content in the EU, 14 April 2025, updated 27 March 2026.
3. Meta, using AI interactions to personalise content and ads, 1 October 2025.
4. Facebook, data of up to 87 million people, 4 April 2018.
5. FTC, $5 billion penalty and privacy order, 24 July 2019.
6. Irish Data Protection Commission, €1.2 billion fine, 22 May 2023.
7. UN Human Rights Council, report of the fact-finding mission on Myanmar, A/HRC/39/64, 12 September 2018.
8. Facebook, removing Myanmar military officials, 28 August 2018.
9. The Verge, conditions for Facebook’s contract moderators, 25 February 2019.
10. Business & Human Rights Resource Centre, Kenya cases against Meta, updated 12 October 2026.
11. Braghieri, Levy and Makarin, “Social Media and Mental Health”, 2022.
12. New York Attorney General, $17.1 billion settlement and reforms, 26 August 2026.
13. Meta, “More speech and fewer mistakes”, 7 January 2025.
14. FTC, appeal in the Meta monopolisation case, 20 January 2026.
15. European Commission, €797.72 million fine for tying Marketplace to Facebook, 14 November 2024.
16. Meta Help, export your information, and delete your profile, checked 13 October 2026.
17. Meta, changes to controls for activity from other businesses, 9 June 2026.
18. CNBC, ads come to WhatsApp, 16 June 2025.
19. Telegram privacy policy, updated 21 August 2026, and 404 Media on Telegram’s US data disclosures, 2025.
20. ToS;DR grades, all checked 13 October 2026.

What changed

• 13 October 2026: rebuilt the guide around the jobs people use Facebook for, and re-checked everything. Added Bluesky, Ente Photos, Hylo, Discourse, Lemmy, Mobilizon, Buy Nothing, Freegle, Craigslist, Element, Conversations, Briar, Jami, Threema, SimpleX Chat, Olvid, Loops, Diaspora, Hubzilla, Movim, Micro.blog, mltshp, Flarum and MyBB. Removed MeWe (it now sells in-feed ads and crypto-token boosts), Steemit (accounts can never be deleted) and Tookapic (loads Meta’s tracking pixel, no visible development since 2019), plus services that are dead or unmaintained (Okuna, Zap, Newebe, Aether, Scuttlebutt, Librem Social, Librem Chat, UpRing, Stealthy, Silence, Zom, Factr). Telegram moved to the popular-options section with the facts. Riot.im is now Element, Freenet is now Hyphanet. Dropped the Giphy section (Meta sold Giphy to Shutterstock in June 2023) and the developer section (React moved to a foundation at the Linux Foundation in February 2026).
• 6 March 2023: previous update.

Featured image by Zoshua Colah on Unsplash.