Like Lemmy Mastodon is federated so it really doesn't matter that much. You will want to find one that has local chatter you're interested in or policies you agree with. But after that you subscribe to everyone from everywhere else it doesn't matter that much.

https://mastodonservers.net/servers

The amazing folks at lemmy.world--who have performed quite admirably these past couple of weeks under quite severe battle conditions--also handle mastodon.world. I've donated money to them to support their efforts, and joined their mastodon side with the assumption that it will be a good place to hang out.

The best Mastodon instance is the one that aligns with your interests and values the most.

• Are you interested in tech? There's a couple of tech-focused instances.
• Are you some flavor of LGBTQ+? Some instances do a better job at keeping out bad actors, and you can be around like-minded people.
• Are you interested in gaming? Movies? Art? Writing? Game development? Home improvement? Gardening? Activism? Memes? News?
• Maybe you're interested in stuff happening in your country or local area?

Why? When you're looking for new content, and new people to follow, the local and federated timelines of your instance are a good way to do so. Your home timeline includes all the people and hashtags you followed yourself, and their boosts. The local timeline includes all the posts and boosts of everyone on your instance. The federated timeline has all the content that everyone on your instance is following. (Of course you can always follow anyone you like, but I'm making a point about ease of discovering content relevant to you here.)

For this reason, just joining a big, general-purpose is less useful, since you're just going to get a hodge-podge of random things in these timelines. Perhaps you don't mind, but I feel like it's good to point out this feature of the fediverse, as some people might not know, or realize this is a thing.

How? Okay, of course this is silly to recommend without giving you some way to look for these instances. There's a couple of directories that allow you to search for them. Looking for some briefly came up with https://instances.social/, https://mastodon.help/instances and https://mastodonservers.net/. Also note you can migrate your account from one instance to another, taking your followed content and even followers with you.

My own. Where im the only user 😃

mastodon.social Though I too am new there, I like it. It feel refreshing from Twitter's trash.

Regarding client: I mostly use web on desktop and mobile; though they have official Android app too.

Edit: They are federated with Pixelfed and Kbin too.

My home is tech.lgbt, and you can imagine the type of people there suggested by the name (which is exactly what I hoped for when I joined). I had to bounce around a little on lemmy before I found this home though, guess I can't get it right the first time every time. 😁

I host my own instance with Masto.host. (@gadgetboy@gadgetboy.social)

I don’t need to be concerned with the Threads drama or worry about people defederating it - I’m in control.

As for best client, I personally love Mona. It runs on my iPhone, iPad, and Mac and perfectly syncs my position in the timeline across devices. Lots of other great features, too.

There are a lot of great ones. I would personally suggest checking out Calckey, though- I like it a lot more than Mastodon. It’s a lot of fun to use.

In terms of clients, Mona is my personal favorite.

Went with noc.social because they were open, I like Linux, and the name was shorter. However I don’t follow anyone else on that instance that I know of.

I use Mammoth for iOS. I LOVED Tweetbot and tried Ivory but I really like Mammoth more. The dev has done an outstanding job in a very short time.

Megalodon app is pretty and slick... and open source. It is available on Izzy or Google Play.

https://android.izzysoft.de/repo/apk/org.joinmastodon.android.sk

If you not use English speech, try to find your local language. or just use popular instance (i.e mstdn.social mastodon.social) select with:

• instance server rules that you agreed
• server never down before

TL;DR I suggest to use official instance cuz it has many people in local instance

Ivory (from the makers of Tweetbot) is a nice mastodon client for iOS.

I am on Mastodon.social, and I use the official app (this one) . I think the official app is quite good, I haven't had any kind of problem with it.

For reference though I literally never got I to Twitter. I got I to Mastodon to boost fediverse engagement, and while I'm enjoying it I'm not what you'd call a power user so if there are features other apps offer that the official one doesn't I wouldn't know what to do with them.