I built Topicle, an Australian alternative to Reddit, hosted in Melbourne
A user in r/RedditAlternatives suggested I post here since Topicle is Australian-made. I also saw a thread here a while back where someone wished for Australian alternatives to big tech and the reply was "I don't know of any social media." So here's one.
I'm a Melbourne-based software dev and I've been building a social discussion platform as an Australian alternative to Reddit. It's at topicle.com.
Built and hosted in Australia with servers in Melbourne. Registered Australian company (Topicle Pty Ltd), self-funded with no VC money. Software is one of the few areas of tech we can genuinely build here without importing parts from Shenzhen, so this is coded, designed, hosted, and run entirely in Australia. Analytics are self-hosted, there's no Google or Facebook tracking, and user data is stored under Australian jurisdiction.
With Reddit now a US public company licensing user data to AI companies and a new appetite for non-US options, it felt like the right time to build something locally that puts users first. A few things that set it apart:
- Moderator accountability - mod actions are logged publicly on every community, every action can be appealed to site admins, and accepted appeals automatically restore removed content. Communities can't be run as fiefdoms.
- No ads, no algorithmic feed - no promoted content or engagement-optimizing algorithm. The default sort ("Depth") promotes articles and discussion over memes and image posts.
- Country flags and no private profiles - flags are displayed next to all posts and comments based on where you're posting from. All user history is public. Makes it much harder for bots and astroturfers to blend in.
- Privacy first - IP addresses are hashed before storage, self-hosted analytics, no third-party trackers, full account deletion and data export. Designed with Australian privacy law in mind.
There's a full feature list at topicle.com/about and the longer story behind why it exists at topicle.com/why.
It's early and the community is still small, but the platform itself is full-featured and actively developed - I'm working on it daily.
If anyone has questions about the site or the tech behind it, happy to answer.