Hive is a very big ecosystem, and the thing about big ecosystems are that they can be confusing and overwhelming. Thankfully though, there are difference interfaces and dApps that help simplify things for users based on the users preference.
Out of the most popular ones we have are Splinterlands, Ecency, PeakD, 3Speak, Liketu, Hive Engine and on the list goes. Like I already said, these dapps are all different and have special features to unique to them that might influence why a user will decide to use them or not to use them.
Most of the Dapps serve a general purpose of allowing Hivers post content onto the Hive blockchain. But what type of content it allows you post depends on the Dapp. Dapps like Ecency and PeakD are for general text and image upload. The usual stuff. But we have special dApps like Splinterlands that is a gaming dApp built on Hive, and 3speak, a YouTube on steroids, and Liketu, an upgrade and better version of Instagram.
Of course, Ecency has many great features that it shares in common with PeakD like post scheduling and drafts, but I’m going to be focusing this post on the very few unique things about Ecency that makes it choose it any day.
Mobile App Experience
First thing I love about Ecency is the fact that they have a mobile App. I’m a mobile person and even though I have a laptop, I do 80% of my creation on my phone because it’s easier and convenient. A mobile app saves me the time of having to hop on to Safari and scroll over 100 tabs to open up Hive every single day.
I’m generally used to social media on a mobile app and the fact that Ecency presents Hive in a Facebook or Instagram kind of format makes it look friendly, familiar and easy to navigate.
Just look at this interface. Does anyone need to tell you what is what here? It looks like Facebook and without any sort of user guide, you’ll still navigate it with ease.
As far as I know, PeakD doesn’t have a mobile app. Although, I’ve seen a few of my friends adding the PeakD web shortcut onto their screens and using it like an App. Doesn’t really do it for me.
Also, even for oldies like me who like messing around with a lot of features, PeakD looks complex. In my opinion, it’s not the dApp newbies will be able to navigate, as it’s got a more of a complex appearance and complex features as well. I’d say that PeakD is for people with a touch for going in-depth.
Ecency Points
This is probably one of the best incentives for people who use Ecency. The fact that you don’t just get rewarded in Hive and HBD, but that for using Ecency and being active on Hive, you’re rewarded with Ecency points is just amazing. You get Ecency points for upvoting, commenting, reblogging and even following.
The Ecency points have many use cases, post boosting being the common thing I use it for. Aside that though, you can promote your posts with it or gift them to others as tips.
Promoting your post basically puts it on people’s feeds whether they follow you or not, or whether your post fits into certain communities or not. So in essence, this gives your post visibility. The wrong assumptions I find many people making is that once your promote your post, ut should get good votes. Yeah no. See, promoting it only gives you visibility, but it’s up to people to decide whether or not they want to vote what they’re seeing. If they like the content, then sure, you’ll get some votes. But if they don’t, sorry pal.
Boosting your post with Ecency points basically means that you’re submitting it to vetting and possibly curation if it meets the criteria for curation by 
What I don’t get though is why
The sweet thing about using this Ecency points to boost posts is that it allows you spare your Hive which you’d use to boost posts on PeakD for instance.
These are the two unique things I love about Ecency and why I use it everyday. If you take a closer look though, these two points branch into many other important things. Like the Ecency points branches into post boosting and promotion among others, and the fact that Ecency has a mobile app makes it user friendly and easy to navigate.
My biggest hassle with using Ecency is with the mobile app. The mobile app crashes too many times before you can get a post published on mobile. So recently I don’t use my Ecency mobile app for uploads much. I write my post on phone, save the post as draft and do the editing on my laptop because of hoe often the mobile app crashes. I’ve made several conplaints and the Ecency team say they’re working on it, so I (and many others I’m sure) am patiently waiting for the bug to be fixed.
In the end, it all boils down to preferences. Like I said earlier, if you’re more of a geeky person that loves numbers and analytics, PeakD might be the front end for you. But if you’re looking for an easy to use dApp, Ecency is your que.🙂
The thumbnail was designed by me on Canva and screenshots ate from Ecency mobile app.