I've been running a one-person instance since 2011, and I occasionally contribute code.

The plugin system has been mentioned, but that's just the technical outcome of a core cultural differentiator: Friendica forswears all purity tests. While others bicker about whether Threads or Bluesky is good enough for the Fediverse, Friendica just connects to them, as long as they're willing. In the past that included reviled platforms like Facebook and Twitter, and that only ended when they stopped connecting to us, not the other way round.

So if you're sick of the Fedidrama, Friendica is a refuge.

One thing not widely known that I wished got more attention: the Events support. It's currently limited because no-one can agree what the standard says. But Friendica's implementation seems more advanced than any others. Imagine instead of clicking "like", you click "attend", and 1. all your followers see that you're attending, 2. the event organiser's followers see the attendee count tick up, and 3. the event appears automatically in your phone's calendar, with an address and reminders. I hope other platforms take inspiration from this. It could end up being important, e.g. for bands.