For years, our social media experiences have been dominated by big tech players like Meta (Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp), Google (YouTube), Snapchat, TikTok and X. However, a growing number of startups are taking aim at these giants by creating new, often smaller and more personal social experiences to connect people with friends, interests and closer communities.
If you’re looking for a way to escape the grip of traditional social media and Big Tech products in general, there are plenty of interesting alternatives available. Many of these are aimed at Gen Z and younger, a group that is often more willing to build their social networks in new spaces compared to people with established networks who are on aging platforms.
Below are some of our favorites that are worth downloading.
Retro
Retro is a carefully designed photo sharing app that focuses on creating connections with friends in a more private format. Created by two former Instagram team members, Nathan Sharp and Ryan Olson, the app offers simple ways to share photos with the people in your life who matter, as well as others that help you reconnect with your own memories. You can select specific photos to highlight each week, drop photos into albums, and find and follow others through the search functions. You also have your own user profile that includes privacy controls that let you choose which of your friends can see more photos than the most recent month’s photos.
Universe
Are you the creative type who is sick of AI on Pinterest? Another app, Universecould provide an escape. Dubbed an “inspiration space,” Cosmos lets you search by color, keyword, or image to create a profile based on your taste. You can also follow friends and other tasters and collaborate with others in collections. Overall, the app is a little more upscale than Pinterest and can also be used to shop for interesting products that fit your style.
Indian
Want to get off X but don’t know which decentralized social network to choose — Mastodon or Bluesky? of Indigo The app solves this problem by offering a single app where you can join both networks at the same time. The app offers a unified scheduler and composer that lets you cross-post to both services at the same time, access your custom feeds, and plenty of personalization tools and configuration settings. The application has some varnishes, since it was co-created by Ben McCarthy, who also developed the Obscura series of apps and morealong with freelance iOS designer Aaron Vegh.
Indian: iOS only
Corner
Corner says it best, calling its app “Google Maps but social,” which is an apt description. The company has a growing community of around 125,000+ users who curate their favorite places both locally and abroad into lists that can be ‘saved’ or made public for others to discover. With a distinctly Gen Z vibe, this isn’t just a place to find “good restaurants near me,” but to discover unique lists like those focused on the best pasta spots, queer nightlife, live jazz spots, non-club dance spots, indie bookstores, and anything else you want to categorize, recommend, organize. The app also provides a personalized map where you can see your favorite places, the ones you want to try, other people’s recommendations and more. It’s like Google Maps if someone from 2026 designed it.
Corner: iOS only
Divine
If you’re still missing Vine (thanks a lot, Twitter), you’ll want to download the reboot called Divine. Business developer Evan Henshaw-Plath, an early Twitter employee, introduced the Vine file to his team’s new app, which aims to provide a home for short-form video creators. The app hosts about 500,000 videos from nearly 100,000 original Vine creators and allows users to re-make their own six-second videos. Several early Vine creators have returned to the app as well, such as Lele Pons, Jimmy Here, MightyDuckand Jack and Jackamong others. The project also has financial support from Twitter co-founder and former CEO Jack Dorsey’s non-profit organization, “and other things”, which aims to support open source social projects.
Grid
Although it is not exactly a social network in the sense that it is a platform for direct connection, Grid is a useful tool to throw in your line of networking applications. The app is kind of like an address book on steroids, as it lets you keep track of what people in your network have been up to — personally, professionally, and more — by tracking changes to LinkedIn or X bios, posts, publications, and more. In addition, Mesh provides tools that allow you to reach out and reconnect at a pace you set, somewhat like a personal CRM. Acquired by WordPress.com owner Automattic in 2025 (when it was then known as Clay), Mesh plans to offer deeper integrations with Automattic’s universal messaging app, Beeper — which, by the way, you should also download.
Grid: iOS/Desktop computer/Tissue
Myth
The Fable book club community app recently received an upgrade that makes it worth another look, even if it’s not your primary book tracker. The company now offers a group service with a digital reading subscription provider Everett (as both are owned by Scribd), which offers access to 1.5 million ebooks and audiobooks from major publishers and more. Your ratings and reviews are then synced to Fable, where you can also see other people’s recommendations and join virtual book clubs. Goodreads who?
To be fair, there are so many book trackers to choose from these days that it’s hard to narrow things down. I personally enjoy it too Library, Reading Journey (which has a great widget), Margins, TBRand Reserved pagebut there’s even more! We really have a lot of options in this space, so why not download them all?
Locket
Locket is one of the pioneers of the idea of putting your friends directly on your iPhone’s home screen. The social networking app offers a live widget that updates as your friends upload new photos or messages, which you can reply to via a lightweight chat option. You can also participate in weekly photos, follow your favorite artists and more.
AirPods
Apple and Spotify never quite got social networking around music right, but AirPods appears to have done so. The app is a social network where you share what you broadcast with your friends, and then it builds on that functionality to offer a number of other features. You can react to your friends’ music choices with emojis, stickers or selfies, play clips of your friends’ recently streamed songs, message friends, profile your favorite bands, or participate in music-related activities like music quizzes, build your music style, or find out which friend has similar music taste, to name a few.
The Mall
Recently launched application The Mall turns online shopping into a social experience. The app offers a universal feed to follow updates and new releases from your favorite brands, mostly fashion — though you can add others that have an online e-commerce storefront. Plus, you can visit friends’ profiles to see what kind of items are in their collections and “mall” and get inspiration and suggestions from other brands you might like, based on your tastes and style.
The Mall: iOS (waiting list)
Shelf
Shelf The main idea is to give you a way to organize your taste — meaning the music, movies, TV shows, books and other things you like. In doing so, Shelf allows you to learn more about yourself, get personalized recaps, dive into trend analysis and more. But there’s a social element at play here, too, because you can browse friends’ shelves as sources of discovery and inspiration. Additionally, unlike many of the traditional social media platforms, Shelf is private by default because it’s not about gaining influence. it’s about keeping a history of your own digital life and interests, as well as your friends.
Shelf: iOS
When you purchase through links in our articles, we may earn a small commission. This does not affect our editorial independence.
