Lobste.rs is quite different from HN, though, so I think it's fair to warn people in advance:

HN allows anything that "hackers" might find interesting. On lobste.rs, anything that's not directly programming-related is generally off-topic.

HN encourages self-promotion, lobste.rs discourages it.

Until recently lobste.rs was very actively anti-AI. Newer rules have rolled that back somewhat, but there is still a rather vocal anti-AI contingent that is not afraid to pick fights with people who openly admit to being interested in machine learning as a technology.

Been curious for years, never asked anyone for an invite. You wouldn't happen to have one do you? Email in my profile.

Lobste.rs is alright.. I've taken some dips as a reader and turned down invites.

Ignoring the actual submissions, which are usually mirrored on HN, I find the small user base often doesn't offer much in interesting comments. Many are short with little value, and I don't recall seeing many submission authors piping in, or luminaries with the deep knowledge that you sometimes see drop in on HN.

Friends tell me there is a definite political bias that leaks out.

I think Hackaday is a good alternative for hardware oriented HNers.

lobste.rs was the new HN for a while but now it has two major issues:

1. They have abandoned their former policy of “everything non-programming related is off topic” to allow discussion about politics

2. They have lost most of their users. It’s like a ghost town.

HN have some flaws but is still the gathering place for many technical people.

Absolutely not. Just look at the fiasco when it came to Bun's rust migration. So many threads about how it was a marketing stunt, how it will never work, how when it's working it's still not on main, when it was on main how it took a whole couple months and X $. And now that the articles about it's completion have come, practically radio silence and no admission of being completely repeatedly wrong. HN was bad, lobste.rs was awful. That saga showed how inaccurate and motivated reasoning both of these forums are.

I'd like one if you have any, as well. I like Hacker News but I really need to go "outside" more on the web, I realized the other day that HN has become my hobbit hole over the last decade plus, but when I look for other places I'm mostly only finding value in small, semi-private communities.