Some features of the site (like responding to your comment) require JS, but I just tried blocking JS with uBlock and I was able to use most of the site perfectly fine.
I am not sure about strict mode on Tor, but you should totally report back if it works. Give it a shot!
Hello from Piefed! I was a regular on Lemmy and Mastodon for years, but I migrated to Piefed because it is much more lightweight.
The features page shows some differences between Piefed and Lemmy - https://join.piefed.social/features/ Mostly, I appreciate that it is written in Python, so more developers in the community may easily understand and contribute to the code base, and that it is so lightweight. When I connect to the internet I always have to consider data caps, so it's a relief when websites make a genuine effort to be efficient. I can reliably browse the fediverse through Piefed even when my access is throttled to 50Kbps download.
Well, regardless what tech stack makes it possible, when my phone data is throttled to ~55kbps Piefed is perfectly usable and most sites are not.