Alternative clients to the Farcaster App are nothing new. We’ve had great ones for a while: HeroCast, Supercast (RIP), Recaster, and Cura, to name a few. But the launch of The Base App (TBA)by Coinbase changes the game. It brings a totally different monetization model, its own reward structure, and a waitlist of 700,000 people who could be flooding the network in the next few months. If you’re serious about Farcaster as a protocol, it’s worth digging into all of the major players. 

Recaster shines when you need to schedule posts. If your audience is global, try casting across time zones to see when engagement peaks. If you are struggling with engagement, maybe you aren’t casting when most of your audience is online (the home feed in the Farcaster App has also been very “fresh” lately so timing may play a key role). Their “stats” page for users is full of great info (spam labels, Neynar scores, OpenRank stats; all on one screen). Lists are also extremely powerful and a great way to tame your experience and see more content catered to your own personal interests.  They also have a "Trending" Feed which the Farcaster App recently sunset. Standalone app via iOS or Mini App inside clients.

Cura is great for channels. It lets you explore what’s hot, new, and trending per channel. It’s more like Reddit than a reverse-chronological feed for your favorite channels. Personally, I don’t love reverse chronological feeds in channels; they don’t really surface what the community’s excited about. Cura fixes that. If you are serious about channels and communities, it’s the best way to slice and dice channel content surfaced by members of the channel instead of just an algorithm.  Cura is also experimenting with their own home "feed" based on the channels you follow.

They have a stand alone app on the iOS store, a web app, and a mini app available inside the Farcaster App/TBA/Recaster.

Then there’s The Base App (TBA). It’s all about creator and content monetization. It has its own rewards algorithm, leaderboard, and a single global feed. No one fully understands how their algo works yet, but if you want to see the Farcaster protocol in a different light, their feed is very different from the home feed in the main Farcaster client. 

You can “coin” each post individually and hope it goes viral from TBA or use a new mini-app called Zorro by @derek to tie your creator coin to a post without creating a new coin every time. 

One downside of The Base App is Mini Apps compatibility…not all of them work perfectly and some wallet-based apps may require different wallets for different apps. If you find one that’s misbehaving, reach out to the developer. You may be able to give them some insight and share bugs they are unaware of at the moment. 

• If you’re casting into channels, use Cura or the Farcaster App.

• If you’re not casting to channel, post directly from The Base App (TBA) to be eligible for their Base Creator Rewards.

• If you’ve got friends across the globe, try Recaster and change your casting times with scheduling.

• Farcaster pulls in casts from all clients, so you’re still eligible for Farcaster Leaderboard Rewards if you cast from indie clients like Cura and Recaster, but NOT TBA. Base’s rewards are separate; to earn those, you need to post from The Base App (TBA).

Original post on Farcaster: