@dichotomiker Everybody has their own preferences. Pleroma has cool stuff too. And maybe you'd like to take a look at Misskey as well, so many features that Mastodon don't have. There are a few more platforms but they're a bit more obscure.
@trinsec Community is worth a lot when you compare open-source software. So, who has more, gets even more, I guess?
@dichotomiker It totally depends on what you want to get out of it. Mastodon has proven to be fairly robust for medium-large communities. Pleroma is great for smaller ones who don't want to waste that many resources just for a few people. Misskey is totally different, you'd have to look it up. But all of them are part of the microblogging family.
And if you want something different, like an Instagram-competitor, look at Pixelfed. YouTube competitor? PeerTube. There are even a few federated blogging platforms.
And if you can code and are not satisfied with what's already around... why not write your own! :D
@dichotomiker That said, if you're going to selfhost an instance which'll only have you, I can recommend Pleroma as that's quicker to set up and lighter on resources.