For an easy understanding of how federation works between Lemmy and Mastodon (interacting with Lemmy from a Mastodon instance and vice versa), have a look at this handy table!
All tests were done using the default Mastodon UI and the default Lemmy UI.
Legend
✅Works as expected✳️Works, but is missing some features❎Barely works, can not be used practically❌Does not work at all, I couldn't find a way to make it work
| Feature | Using Mastodon, interacting with Lemmy | Using Lemmy, interacting with Mastodon |
|---|---|---|
| Viewing a post with its link | ✳️ Paste the link of the Lemmy post in Mastodon’s search bar. Will only show the post title with a link to the post, NOT the post contents. |
✳️ Only works when the post was made to a Lemmy instance |
| Viewing a post with an image | ✳️ Only works when the image is in the « Image » field of the post Does NOT work when the image is in the post’s body |
✅ |
| Viewing a post with markdown text | ✳️ Partial support. What works : - Bold text - Italic text - Strikethough - Markdown links - Quotes What doesn’t : - Headings are all just bold text - Hashtags are not clickable - Images in markdown are invisible - Sub-lists are not rendered - Dividers don’t appear - Spoilers are not supported, and spoiler contents are revealed by default - Tables are not rendered, all of the contents are unformatted in the post |
❎ Mastodon does not support posting with markdown, so no markdown posts will be made from Mastodon. Polls don’t work and content warnings either. The title of the CW disappears and its contents is revealed. Post langage from Mastodon doesn’t carry over to Lemmy |
| Viewing comments | ✳️ By default, no, unless the comment is from another Mastodon account. But you can view a comment with its link after some tinkering. Lemmy’s UI copies the comment link by default as https://my.instance/post/postId/commentId which Mastodon doesn’t support. |
✳️ Only works when comments were made to a Lemmy post or comment. Comments on Mastodon on a Mastodon comment on a Lemmy post still appear on Lemmy |
| Viewing communities | ❎ You can put the link of the community in Mastodon but there’s nothing in it. You can see the icon or description of the community No users or posts appear, so it’s pretty pointless. |
Not applicable There are no communities on Mastodon |
| Viewing users | ✳️ Search for @[email protected] to view someone’s profile. Partial support. You can view : - Their profile picture - The posts and comments where they mention you - Replies to your posts and comments You can not view : - The communities they moderate - Any of their other posts or comments |
✳️ Go to https://my.instance/u/[email protected] to view their profilePartial support. You can view : - Their profile picture - The posts and comments where they mention you - Replies to your posts and comments - Posts and replies made to Lemmy instances You can not view : - Their follower count (you can’t follow people on Lemmy so it makes sense) - Their profile fields - Any of their other posts or comments |
| Mention someone | ✅ You can click on someone who is mentionned to see their profile even if they are from another instance. By mentionning @[email protected] you can make a post to that community. |
✅ You can click on someone who is mentionned to see their profile even if they are from another instance. |
| Notifications | ✅ Whenever someone mentions you, replies to your post, etc, even if they come from Lemmy |
✳️ You get notified if someone replies to your post or comment You don’t get notified if they mention you in a new post, even if it’s a post made to a Lemmy instance. |
| Following people | ✅ Works well but since you can’t see most of their posts it’s not of much use |
Not applicable Can’t follow people on Lemmy |
| DM someone | ❌ Private messages (only visible for mentionned users) from Mastodon are invisible on Lemmy |
❌ Private messages don’t trigger anything on Mastodon |
| Search for hashtags | ❌ Hashtags in Lemmy posts don’t do anything on Mastodon |
❌ You can’t search for hashtags on Lemmy |
Mm, would be interesting to see other comparisons like Piefed-Mastodon and NodeBB-Mastodon!