I wasn’t on Reddit for over a year but from what I’ve heard about /r/redditalternatives is that it’s a shitshow.

It’s quite okay to be honest. Not that active, but that’s mostly it.

If somebody is still on Reddit, direct recruitment over DMs might be better if there’s a candidate who might be interested.

The issue is that to DM you have to know who is actually interested, and you’ll miss most of the lurkers. Also, this could be reported as spamming and get you banned.