When it comes to instances there's no "right" answer for everyone. Pick one that you enjoy, that you identify yourself with, that you don't distrust the people in charge, and that is neither shitting its pants nor overly large. This site might help you with that.

I can't recommend an app.

Define 'weird political shit'. Because Mastodon is also full of weird political shit. The election years are unbearable.

I'd go for stability. Smaller instances can be slow. If you want fast load times use a bigger one, like mastodon.social

Tusky is a great droid app. And I would suggest one of the big official instances. If you hate it you can transfer your account/profile to another one. Your posts don't transfer though.

Server doesn't really matter much (to me), but I'm on toot.community because I'm mentally a child and like the funny name :)

App-wise, I really enjoy Moshidon, been using the nightly version for a while now: https://github.com/LucasGGamerM/moshidon

Bluesky isn't a terrible Twitter alternative, but it's not federated. Mastodon is fine, but I've had a much harder time staying engaged there.

If you like Lemmy.World, why not set up the account on Mastodon.World? It's the same admin/ops team.

I second moshidon, although I've just started using phanpy, which has some cool innovations. There is not nearly the wealth of Mastodon apps that we have here on Lemmy.

Megalodon is a good client, forked from a recent version of the official Mastodon app for Android (which is a fine client in itself). Megalodon also supports some extra features that some instances opt for via a forked backend, but it's fully compatible with all instances. Here's are some good place to find instances https://mastodon.fediverse.observer/list https://fedidb.org/software/mastodon

If you don't want weird political shit, avoid the largest ones, like .social.

I am on mastodon.art which has most of the fascist distros blocked and I use Tusky. I love it.

Mastodon also has great filtering tools and temp muting so you can curate your experience pretty tightly too.

pick your poison here: https://joinmastodon.org/

I recommend against mastodon.social, it's slowly turning into the old twitter.

I don't know about servers but moshidon is great

noc.social is a small but quick server. Don’t use Android so I can’t speak to that.

And I will say that I’ve got much better engagement on Mastodon than I ever did Twitter. The people overall are kinder and more thoughtful. It’s more likely that the disrupters just aren’t there yet. Almost everyone I had followed on Twitter is on Mastodon though. May not be the same for everyone.

Tusky for client. Lots of good medium sized instances (avoid mastodon.social). I'm on mas.to for a general account and mastodon.scot for a local one (both reliable, run by the same person).

I moved from tusky to moshidon, as for a server just pick one, I use mas.to

I've never even browed the local feed on the Masro server I'm on.

Just pick a non mainstream one that has been around for a bit ?

I use Fedilab, Megalodon and Rodent.

wetdry.world (/hj)

Lemmy.world and Connect have been working great for me on multiple Android phones.

Dunno how to answer your question BUT X-twitter was always political. It's worse now because of the upcoming elections, AND if Elon is actually going to be a part of the government it'll be a raging dumpster fire. Good luck, OP.

The benefit to finding a instance that somewhat fits your interests/ideals is that your local feed will be useful. On a huge instance it really is not.

I'm on a local Scottish instance called glasgow.social because the admin is relaxed about free speech without allowing it to become a total cesspool. Almost got kicked off treehouse.systems before I migrated because I suggested political violence was bad - even if left wing people were doing it.

App wise I recommend just using the progressive web app (install website as app). It works very well, and you always get the latest updates.

For the server, find one that targets one of your interests.

Nah that's not it. Twitter is filled with engagement bait and right wing weirdos peddling low key sexism and racism. You can't even see the people you follow anymore.

Fedilab is a killer app I mainly use. Also as for server ur gonna have to do some digging to find one specifically tailored to your needs 😂

Try Bluesky