Beyond Instagram: Introducing the next generation of social apps

For years, our social media experiences have been dominated by big tech companies like Meta (Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp), Google (YouTube), Snapchat, TikTok, and X. But a growing number of startups are taking aim at these giants by building new, smaller and often more personal social networking experiences to connect people with friends, interests and tight-knit communities.

If you’re looking for a way to extricate yourself from the grip of traditional social media and big tech products in general, there are a number of interesting alternatives available. Many of them cater to Generation Z and younger, a group that is often more willing to build their social networks in new spaces than people with established networks existing on older platforms.

Here are some of our favorites, all of which are worth downloading.

Retro

Retro is a carefully designed photo sharing app that focuses on building relationships with friends in a more personal 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 most, as well as other people who help you reconnect with your own memories. You can select specific photos to highlight each week, dump photos into albums, and find and follow others via search features. You also have your own user profile which includes privacy controls that allow you to choose which of your friends can see more of your photos in the last month.

Equipment: iOS/Android

universe

Are you the creative type who’s tired of the decline of AI on Pinterest? Another app, Cosmos, can provide you with an escape. Dubbed a “space for inspiration,” Cosmos lets you search by color, keyword or image to form a profile based on your taste. You can also follow friends and other tastemakers and collaborate with others in groups. Overall, the app is a bit superior to Pinterest, and can also be used to shop for interesting products that match your taste.

Universe: iOS/Android

Indigo

Are you looking to get rid of X but don’t know which decentralized social network to choose – Mastodon or Bluesky? Indigo app solves this problem by offering one app through which you can participate in both networks simultaneously. The app offers a unified and authored schedule that allows you to co-deploy both services simultaneously, access custom feeds, and numerous customization tools and configuration settings. The app has some improvements, as it was co-created by Ben McCarthy, who also developed the Obscura suite of apps and others, along with freelance iOS designer Aaron Vegh.

Indigo: iOS only

corner

Koerner says it best, calling his app “Google Maps but social,” which is an apt description. The company has a growing community of more than 125,000 users who organize their favorite places locally and abroad into lists they can “save” or post for others to discover. With a definite Gen Z vibe, this isn’t just a place to find “good restaurants near me,” but to uncover unique lists, like ones focused on where you can find the best dumplings, exotic nightlife, live jazz venues, dance places that aren’t clubs, independent bookstores, and anything else you want to categorize, organize, and recommend. The app also provides a personalized map where you can view your favorite places, places you want to try, other people’s suggestions, and more. It’s like Google Maps if someone from the year 2026 designed it.

Corner: iOS only

divine

If you’re still missing Vine (thanks very much, Twitter), you’ll need to download the reboot called Divine. Enterprising developer Evan Henshaw-Plath, one of Twitter’s first employees, has imported the Vine archive into his team’s new app, which aims to provide a home for short-form video creators. The app hosts nearly 500,000 videos from nearly 100,000 original Vine creators and allows users to once again create their own six-second videos. Many of Vine’s early creators have returned to the app as well, such as Lele Pons, JimmyHere, MightyDuck, Jack and Jack, and others. The project also has financial support from Twitter co-founder and former CEO Jack Dorsey’s non-profit “And Other Things” Foundation, which aims to support open source social projects.

Divine: iOS/Android/Web

not

Although it’s not quite a social network in the sense of a platform for direct communication, Mesh is a useful tool you can add to your collection of networking apps. Much like an address book, the app lets you keep track of what people in your network have done — personal, professional, and more — by tracking LinkedIn or X bio changes, posts, posts, and more. Additionally, Mesh provides tools that allow you to connect and reconnect with the rhythm you create, a bit like a personal CRM. Mesh, which was acquired by WordPress.com owner Automattic in 2025 (when it was then known as Clay), plans to offer deeper integrations with Automattic’s global messaging app, Beeper — which, by the way, you should download as well.

Network: iOS/Desktop/Web

myth

The Book Club Fable community app recently got an upgrade that makes it worth another look, even if it’s not your main book tracker. The company now offers a bundled service with digital reading subscription provider Everand (since they are both owned by Scribd), which provides access to 1.5 million e-books and audiobooks from major publishers and more. Your ratings and reviews are then synced to Fable, where you can also see others’ recommendations and join virtual book clubs. Goodreads Who?

To be fair, there are so many book trackers you can choose from these days, which makes it difficult to narrow things down. I personally also enjoy Bookshelf, Reading Journey (which has a great tool), Margins, TBR, and PageBound, but there’s more! We really have a wide range of options in this area, so why not just download them all?

Myth: iOS/Android

locket

Locket is one of the pioneers of the idea of ​​putting your friends directly on your iPhone’s home screen. The social app offers a live widget that updates when your friends upload new photos or messages, which you can reply to through a lightweight chat option. You can also participate in weekly photo shoots, follow your favorite artists, and more.

Locket: iOS/Android

AirPods headphones

Apple and Spotify have never properly created music-centric social networks, but the Airbuds appear to have done just that. The app is a social network where you can share what you’re streaming with your friends, and then builds on this functionality to offer a host of other features. You can interact with your friends’ music selections using emojis, stickers or selfies, play clips of your friends’ recently streamed songs, send messages to friends, build your profile with favorite bands, participate in music-related activities like music quizzes, improve your musical style, or discover a friend with matching music taste, to name a few.

AirPods: iOS/Android

The mall

The newly launched The Mall app turns online shopping into a social experience. The app offers a comprehensive feed to follow updates and new releases from your favorite brands, especially fashion – although you can add other brands that have an online e-commerce storefront. Additionally, you can visit friends’ profiles to see what kind of items are in their collections and mall and get inspiration and recommendations on other brands you might like, based on your own tastes and style.

Mall: iOS (waiting list)

Shelf

The basic idea of ​​Shelf is to offer a way to organize your tastes, i.e. music, movies, TV shows, books, and other things that interest you. By doing this, Shelf allows you to learn more about yourself, get personalized summaries, delve into trend details, 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 a lot of traditional social media, Shelf is private by default because it’s not about gaining influence; It’s about preserving your life history, your digital interests, and your friends’ history.

Shelf: iOS