Loops launched on Hacker News last week and immediately caught attention — a federated, open-source alternative to TikTok built on ActivityPub. With short-form video dominating social media and TikTok facing regulatory uncertainty, the timing couldn't be better. I spent a week with it to see if it lives up to the hype.
What it does
Loops is a short-form video platform that runs on the ActivityPub protocol, the same decentralized standard behind Mastodon. Anyone can host their own Loops instance, and users across different instances can follow each other, comment, and share videos — no single company controls the network.
The interface is clean and familiar: a vertical video feed you swipe through, with likes, comments, and shares. Think TikTok's UX with Mastodon's philosophy.
What I liked
The onboarding is surprisingly smooth for a federated app. You pick an instance (or join the flagship one), create an account, and you're scrolling within 30 seconds. The recommendation algorithm is transparent — it favors chronological and community-curated content over engagement-bait optimization.
Video quality is solid. Upload a clip and it plays back without noticeable compression artifacts. The federation works: I followed a creator on a different instance and their videos showed up in my feed seamlessly.
What could be better
Content volume is the obvious challenge. The library is thin compared to TikTok — you'll exhaust the trending feed quickly. This is a chicken-and-egg problem that only time and adoption can solve.
Discovery is also limited. Without a massive recommendation engine, finding new creators relies heavily on hashtags and the explore page. It works, but it's not as effortless as TikTok's For You page.
Who is this for?
Early adopters who care about decentralization and data ownership. Creators who want to own their audience without platform lock-in. Anyone looking for a TikTok alternative that isn't controlled by a single corporation.
If you're happy on TikTok and don't think about platform politics, Loops probably isn't for you yet. But if you're the kind of person who moved from Twitter to Mastodon, this is worth trying.
Bottom line
Loops is the most polished federated video app I've seen. It's early, the content library is small, and it's missing some features — but the foundation is solid. Worth bookmarking and revisiting in six months.