"Chronological feed" has become a feature people ask for by name, which tells you something about how far feeds drifted from the obvious design. Here's the state of it: which apps let you see your people's posts in the order they posted them, what it costs you in taps, and which ones were built that way and don't need a toggle.
A caveat up front: the big apps move their settings around often. Everything here was accurate when written; if a switch isn't where we say, search the app's help for "most recent" or "following".
The apps where it's an option (and resets)
Instagram has a Following feed that lists posts from accounts you follow, newest first. You reach it from the Instagram logo at the top of the Home feed. The catch is the one everyone complains about: next time you open the app, you're back on the ranked feed. You're allowed to look at the chronological one; you're not allowed to live there.
Facebook has a Feeds area with tabs, including Friends, which shows your friends' posts in recent order. It's in the menu, not the default, and it also doesn't stick. Facebook has added and removed "Most Recent" options several times over the years.
X has a Following tab next to the For You tab. It sticks a bit better than the others, but the app still nudges you back toward For You, and the Following tab isn't purely chronological anymore either.
Threads has a Following feed alongside For You, reached by tapping the Threads logo. Same pattern: available, not default.
TikTok has a Following feed, which is almost beside the point, since nobody uses TikTok to follow people.
The shared pattern is the tell. These companies know people want it, because they built it. They also know they make more money when people don't use it, because they hide it and reset it. The option exists to end the argument, not to change the product.
Why the ranked feed is the default
A chronological feed has a natural end: you scroll until you reach the last post you saw yesterday, and you're done. That's good for you and bad for an app that sells minutes. A ranked feed never ends, because it can always find something from someone you don't follow that someone like you watched for a long time.
Ranking also creates the slots that promoted posts go into. If every post appeared in order, an ad would have to appear in order too, and advertisers would have to accept their post sliding off the top like everyone else's. Ranking lets the feed decide which slot the ad gets.
Neither of these is evil. They're what you'd build if your revenue was ads. It's just worth knowing that "we think you'll like this feed better" is doing a lot of work in the settings copy.
The apps that are chronological because of how they're paid for
Mastodon (and the wider fediverse). The home timeline is the posts of accounts you follow, in order, full stop. Servers are run by volunteers or small organizations, funded by donations. The trade-off is that you pick a server and the experience depends on who runs it.
Bluesky. The default Following feed is chronological. Custom feeds, some ranked, are an optional extra you add, which is a sane way around: the plain feed is the floor, ranking is the add-on. Funding is still being worked out, which is the thing to watch.
POINT. The feed is your friends' posts and your groups' posts, newest first. There is no other feed, no For You, no toggle, because there's nothing to rank for. POINT is paid for by optional memberships (design tools, creator tools, business pages) that never touch the feed. Friendship is two-way, so the feed is people you know, not people you were shown. If you want the posts of a creator or a business you don't know personally, you follow them and they appear in order too.
The practical difference between POINT and the two above: it's closer to the old friends-and-family network than to a public town square. Posts are friends-only by default, your page is a customizable Space rather than a profile card, and the people in your feed are the ones who confirmed they know you.
What to actually do
If your friends are on Instagram and Facebook and won't move, use the Following and Friends feeds and accept the reset tax. It's a few taps each time, and it's still better than the ranked one.
If you're choosing where to be, choose by business model, not by feature list. The chronological feed isn't a feature; it's the natural result of not selling your attention. Any app funded by ads that offers it is offering it despite itself.
And if the people you care about are a few dozen friends and family rather than an audience, POINT is free on iPhone and Android, and the feed will do the one thing you keep asking the others to do.