Lemmy

Raised as a usability problem by 69 people on Hacker News over 6 years (2020–2025), in 40 threads.

People raised many different problems with Lemmy, but no single problem has yet been raised by 3 people in 3 different months and threads.

Unreviewed issues were grouped by machine: Claude Haiku labelled each comment as a usability complaint, named what it's about and summed up the problem in a line, and a small model grouped similar problems. Nobody has checked them by hand. Expect mistakes.

The newest 50 complaints

End-user interface is rough and hard to use2025-01-31
Default view is horrendous for users, leading them to unwanted content2025-01-31
Shows logged out on normal refresh, forcing a hard refresh to see the logged-in view2025-01-31
Same communities are duplicated per instance, making it hard to use2024-08-24
Lacks automod and mod queue, making moderating large communities frustrating2024-03-31
Too many instances, many dead, and non-descriptive URLs make choosing one hard2024-03-31
Registration was half broken, so the user can't tell whether they have an account2023-10-10
Shared links open on the wrong instance, so users must find an open-in-instance link for each one2023-08-28
Instructions for joining other instances are buried in a long docs page2023-07-25
Must choose a server with half-written descriptions before seeing any content2023-07-16
Using @ between community and host is confusing, resembles email addresses2023-07-16
Buttons, text areas and dropdowns all look identical, so it's hard to tell what's clickable2023-07-11
Post vote and thumbnail take too much horizontal space, making the site look broken on mobile2023-07-06
Must sign up to multiple instances because instances block each other unpredictably2023-07-02
Linked page is unreadable, with overlapping green text, icons and no zoom2023-07-02
Users can't tell which of hundreds of servers to pick, so they leave2023-07-01
Moderation tools are underdeveloped and the interface is brutal for blind users2023-07-01
User is confused about which instance to sign up on and what happens when instances go down or stop federating2023-07-01
User interface still has rough edges2023-07-01
Overall interface described as a usability nightmare with criticism ignored2023-07-01
Hard to find working servers and communities; random links fail or look like jokes2023-07-01
Problems happen silently, leaving users unaware something went wrong2023-07-01
New users can't tell where communities are hosted and think they must join big instances2023-06-22
Feed reflows and fills with new posts seconds after loading2023-06-22
Irregular post layout, mismatched icons and metadata make feed hard to scan2023-06-21
Hard to understand Lemmy and other federated instances, too time-consuming to learn2023-06-20
Signing up and getting started is slightly more difficult than expected2023-06-20
Users can't find where to look or how to search for worthwhile communities2023-06-20
Must keep multiple accounts across instances to see all subscribed communities in one feed2023-06-20
Back navigation broken, slow loading with delays, and existing content shifting2023-06-20
Submit button spins indefinitely on reply with no error shown2023-06-20
Submit button spins forever and comment text silently disappears2023-06-20
Website is so slow it's effectively unusable, pages often fail to load2023-06-20
Errors silently discarded so pages load forever; following communities requires searching twice2023-06-19
Users didn't know the All button existed, so they couldn't easily find cross-community content2023-06-19
Can't find the sign up button; sign up button does nothing when pressed in the Android app2023-06-19
Links to posts on other instances don't open on your own instance, making voting and replying harder2023-06-16
Disabled and enabled buttons look nearly identical, and sort options look disabled though clickable2023-06-16
Default layout wastes whitespace, showing only about six posts on a large monitor2023-06-15
Confusing username format and having to pick which server to join2023-06-15
Hard to find the communities you want to join2023-06-15
Users can't tell if they can browse or link to communities without joining2023-06-15
Sort by Hot freezes too often, and Activity sorting keeps old topics on top for days2023-06-15
Wasted screen space, expanded line spacing, and poor colour contrast make it hard to read on desktop2023-06-15
Interface looks too complicated for average Reddit users to adopt2023-06-15
Unclear how to subscribe from another instance; search for the community address finds nothing2023-06-15
Non-technical users find Lemmy hard to learn and get used to2023-06-15
Can't open a found community on its home instance; must manually search again in another tab2023-06-15
Too many clicks and confusing federation makes finding communities hard for users2023-06-15
Must manually copy community URLs between instances; cannot log in once and use everywhere2023-06-15