14 Good Reddit Alternatives You Should Check Out

Reddit has gained popularity in the last couple of years. It’s an amazing platform for finding cool content and discussing recent issues with people from all around the world. If you look on the positive side, there is so much user-generate content that you could spend hours browsing the site. It’s an extremely addicting and constantly innovating place.

However, Reddit’s layout looks quite dated. It is even frequently accused of censoring posts that moderators don’t agree with, and often been in the news for misplaced witch hunts and other revolting events.

If your account has been shadow banned, or if you are simply looking for similar platform, there are tons of other “websites like Reddit” on the Internet that are trying so hard to gain popularity. Being an addict, we’ve looked around and came up with a list of Reddit alternative that you might find interesting.

14. PopUrls

PopUrls encapsulates all the top and trending news from world’s most visited social news sites under one roof. There is a great change you would come across a lot of things you never knew existed before.

Due to the sheer amount of articles published on the website, you may find the front page quite overwhelming at first. But you can create an account, log in and customize the site according to your preferences – put the niche you like on the top and hide other sources.

13. Product Hunt

As the name suggests, it hunts for the product available in the market. It covers all technology, games, books, developer’s tool, artificial intelligence, apps, wearable, many more topics. Members can create their own lists, share them with the world, and comment on other’s creations. A submission usually requires a product title, URL, and a tagline.

In November 2016, Product Hunt was acquired by AngelList for $20 million. Currently, it is available as macOS app, iOS app and Chrome extension.

12. Hubski

Launched way back in 2010, Hubski aims to replicate the side of Reddit that fosters thoughtful discourse. It has no explicit rules on what is allowed or what isn’t. It ranks posts based on the number of shares they receive rather than upvotes an downvotes.

In Hubski, you can follow other users and tag anyone in comment, like Twitter hashtags. Likewise, if someone follows you, they receive your hub posts in their feed. Also, you can mute other accounts and ban them from commenting on your posts.

11. Snapzu

Snapzu is an invite-only community where members can share and discuss their interests free of judgement. Members can submit all kinds of web content including links, images, articles, and videos to user-managed communities. Popularity of content is determined by the number of upvotes.

With hundreds of user-run tribes (equivalent to subreddits) across a wide range of topics and ideas, you will always find someone or something interesting to discover.

10. NewsVine

NewsVine is a great place to collect latest stories from all around the world. It syndicates articles from credible and popular sources. The site covers almost all fields, from science and technology to travel and religion. Getting started is as easy as creating a new account and joining a few Nations (equivalent to subreddits) of your choice.

Thousands of users are submitting latest and interesting stories and if you are good with words, they would publish your post on their website, giving you a huge exposure and feedback from other members. You can start a discussion on your favorite Nations, and if you don’t find any suitable Nation for your topic, create your own.

9. 4chan

4chan is an image based bulletin board where anyone can share pictures and post comments without needing an account at all. You can participate in any community without even registering. The site has many different boards covering all topics you can think of, including technology, games, movies, music, Japanese anime, paranormal, business, comics, automobiles, and more.

The 4chan board also has an adult section where the NSFW stuff is posted and discussed. Because anyone can post anything anonymously, most of the users have been instrumental in pranks such as coordinating attacks against other websites, posting threats of violence to elicit individual. The Guardian once summarized the 4chan as juvenile, ridiculous, brilliant, lunatic and alarming.

8. Digg

If you are tired of Reddit’s pale look and want something similar but cleaner and neater, you should really check out Digg. Its clutterless user interface with easy navigation feature will let you focus on only those niches that interest you.

Digg brings the best of web together on its front page. They target internet audience, such as trending political issues, science and technology, and viral Internet issues. A few paid articles have started showing up recently, but the stories are still great. They don’t publish anything that’s not worth reading.

7. Slashdot

Slashdot brings the latest technology news from thousands of other reliable sources in a single page. The site runs on an open source software named, Slashcode. It focuses on Linux, geek news, free and open source tools, information freedom and privacy issues.

Sign up and submit your own story, correction or updates by using the submission form. Also, take part in the discussion and comments to tell other members what you think about the said story.

6. Steemit

Steemit is different from other platforms as it gives rewards for meaningful contributions. Of these contributions the most important are –

  • Posting content that other users find valuable
  • Finding valuable post and upvoting it

The concept is similar to social news or blogging websites like Reddit, but the text content is saved in a block-chain. It enables rewarding posts and comments with secure tokens of value. The website requires no log-in for consuming content, but for posting, commenting and receiving rewards, you need to sign up.

5. Hacker News

Unlike other sites that we’ve covered, Hacker News is well-established and dedicated to tech geeks. There is no subreddit equivalent and nor any post can be downvoted. However, people’s comments can be downvoted by users who have more than 500 karma points. 100 upvotes on a post could get it to the front page.

The site is extremely simple – it has no flashy widgets or sidebars. If you consider yourself a tech enthusiast, entrepreneur, hacker, geek, or if you are engaged in some sort of startup, this is the platform you will absolutely love.

4. Stack Exchange

Stack Exchange is a rapidly-growing network of question and answer sites on a wide range of topics from software programming to photography to cooking and gaming. This is the perfect platform for expert knowledge exchange – programming can ask about PHP rules, physics researchers can ask each other about quantum entanglement, and photographers can share their knowledge about clicking images in the dark.

Users can vote both questions and answers, and through this process earn reputation points. Most helpful answers (most voted) are placed on the top. The site contains more than 165 communities built by people passionate about a focused topic.

3. StumbleUpon

If you are looking for some great stuff on the Internet, StumbleUpon could help you. It’s a nice platform for discovering amazing content submitted by different people from all around the world. Users can rate webpages, images and videos that are personalized to their interests using peer sourcing. Keep stumbling, like/dislike content, save the content or share it with anyone.

The website has a toolbar version for all popular web browsers, including Firefox, Chrome, Safari, Internet Explorer and Opera. Also, it comes as a native mobile app for Android, iOS, Windows and the Amazon Appstore.

Read: 30+ Worthwhile Websites Every Entrepreneur Must Visit

2. Quora

Not like Reddit, but Quora has been a great platform for intelligent conversations. It is giving a tough a competition to Yahoo! Answers. In Quora, users ask questions and other users answer if they feel they have an idea about the topic. The questions are usually answered by experts (in the same field) and most of the answers are detailed, well explained and backed by citations.

While signing up, users are asked to select the topics they are interested in. Later, they receive all the queries related to the selected topics. As you might have guessed by now, answering questions increases the expert level in the community. Overall, this is a perfect platform for healthy and intelligent discussion without having to deal with any spammy content.

1. Voat

Launched in 2014, Voat looks incredibly similar to Reddit. Subverses (equivalent to subreddits) are displayed on the top of the pages, usernames on the right corner, and posts are listed vertically underneath, each with upvote and downvote arrows.

Reddit is known for its strict rules – it goes hard on hate based subreddits. On the other hand, Voat is lenient. It claims that users can post anything as far as it is not illegal. You can even get paid for posting quality links by taking part in the partner program.

Read: 18 Best Content Curation Tools for Marketers and Bloggers

Will You Ever Give Up Reddit?

The only issue with these listed alternatives is their number of visitors. A good user driven content aggregator requires plenty of new posts to keep the front page fresh, informative and to force people to keep returning. That’s the reason, despite all shortcomings and controversies, Reddit continues to reign supreme. Some of the alternatives look really promising and they have all the potential; only time will tell how far they could reach.

Written by
Varun Kumar

I am a professional technology and business research analyst with more than a decade of experience in the field. My main areas of expertise include software technologies, business strategies, competitive analysis, and staying up-to-date with market trends.

I hold a Master's degree in computer science from GGSIPU University. If you'd like to learn more about my latest projects and insights, please don't hesitate to reach out to me via email at [email protected].

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