The one thing puts me off Piefed is the UI. I tried the different available themes, but outside of Irix - 1998, nothing felt right. Irix - 1998 itself is too bright, so i tried it with dark reader but it still feel off put

I was happy once I changed the Compact UI setting to More Compact

I just use Mlem and then both look the same.

Lol, the thing that got me to switch fron Lemmy to Piefed was the UI.

I use a browser extension to add dark mode ("Dark Reader" for Firefox). The advantage is that all sites look consistent.

well, the Lemmy UI is technically another webapp and one should be able to host it as standalone or even as PieFed frontend. That would be cursed :D