On Friday, the Supreme Court upheld the federal law that bans TikTok in the U.S., as reported by the Deseret News.

As U.S. TikTok users brace for the looming ban, many are flocking to different social platforms which offer similar access to seemingly limitless short-form videos.

Unless TikTok’s China-based parent company, ByteDance, sells the app into new ownership, TikTok will be removed from Apple and Google app stores on Sunday, Jan. 19, reports CNN. The app will still be accessible on phones that have it previously downloaded, but it will not be able to update.

“Our position on this has been clear: TikTok should continue to operate under American ownership,” the Biden administration told CNN on Thursday.

Some of the leading apps attracting TikTok users — such as RedNote — are also Chinese-owned. It is too soon to tell how the ban will impact other Chinese-owned social media platforms.

For those mourning over TikTok’s impending ban, here are five TikTok alternatives.

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5 TikTok alternatives

Lemon8

Lemon8, which was developed by ByteDance, the same Chinese company that launched TikTok, has become a front-runner to replace TikTok.

The app is described as a “lifestyle community‚” and puts more focus on photo content — it’s basically a cross between Instagram, Pinterest and TikTok.

But Lemon8 is also under threat of getting banned.

“Even if the U.S. bans TikTok specifically, Bytedance — the parent company — is already migrating users to a competing very similar app that it also owns called Lemon8,” said Josh Constine of the venture capital firm SignalFire, per the Independent. “And so it wouldn’t solve the problem unless we basically ban all of ByteDance’s apps.”

RedNote

Another Chinese-developed app, Xiaohongshu, which is nicknamed “RedNote,” already has more than 300,000 users, mostly in China, per The New York Times.

RedNote has become a safe haven for TikTok refugees. In two days, more than 700,000 new users joined the app, a person close to RedNote told Reuters on Tuesday.

“It’s a content buffet that lets you gorge on every part of the internet in a highly organized manner,” Slate wrote about the app. “It is, dare I say it, possibly the best navigation experience of any social media app I’ve ever used.”

Instagram Reels

On the heels of TikTok’s meteoric rise in the U.S., several American apps replicated the TikTok experience within their own platforms. In 2020, Instagram launched Reels, which is a copycat version of TikTok, per The Associated Press.

Much of TikTok’s content eventually finds its way onto Reels. The Meta platform is not likely to replace TikTok for younger users.

Gen Zers claim they would rather download a new app than let “embarrassing” Instagram Reels fill the role of TikTok, reported Business Insider.

YouTube Shorts

YouTube is the most-used social media app by U.S. adults, according to a 2023 study from Pew Research Center. Of U.S. adults between ages 18-29, 93% claim they use YouTube, the study reported.

Shortly after TikTok was banned in India in 2020, YouTube launched Shorts, which is a clone TikTok, per Variety.

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Comments

Shorts is built into the YouTube app, so users can jump between short-form and long-form video content.

Clapper

If you want an exact replica of TikTok, there’s Clapper. It’s an American-based app that launched in 2020.

You can post short clips, livestream, follow creators and make purchases through the Clapper shop, per Clapper.

“Clapper is the fastest-growing social platform focused on providing local and global videos to all people,” per Clapper. “You can see the latest trends and people’s real lives as they unfold, as well and people’s opinions and talents.”

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