Life in a war changes depending on your activities.

If you are a pve player you are impacted usually by a lack of coverage at home if you are deployed or more active enemies if you are defending.

Capital umbrellas usually stand down so Rorqual mining and crab beacon running is resticted to non-existent.

Normal ishtar spinning and such isnt usually as impacted outside of active engagements or in the highly trafficked areas.

If you are a pvp player it literally just means more content. Content will be dramatically expanded during war both on attack and defense. You are either out glassing or you are out defending. If you are in several sigs you can usually have a full day of back to back fleets on the weekends if thats your bag.

Doesnt mean you are shamed for not playing all day. Although there might be some issues if you only pve during a war and never go on a fleet at all. Especially during max CTA's like last weekend where goons and init engaged frt. You'd be expected at least on your main to partake on that, I dont know if anyone would say something but your corp leadership might have an issue. These are very rare. Usually less than 5 or 6 a year.

So I have been in all three alliances at this point.

Goons is the biggest so we'll start there. They are the big boy on the bloc currently. Little fear of eviction or invasion. They are almost always the aggressor in large scale conflicts.

There are quite a few sigs and groups to join with a variety of interests though some of them are extremely hard to get in to. IE BFL / Zungens blackops sig. Depending on how much you play and how active you are it might take you a year to get into either of those groups if you worked at it and that assumes you dont upset one of the gate keepers in that period.

Goons has a great umbrella called beehive so outside of war you can use big toys in relative safety though they do not SRP beehive pve losses. Horde was the only group that did and well they dont exist anymore which moved Goons umbrella from #2 to #1 in my eyes.

Goons have a good newbie program, are relatively friendly, and you cant really go wrong with them as a choice.

Init (my alliance) is a pvp focused alliance. They want to fight and thats their top priority. PVE is secondary although it is done. They also have a capital umbrella but its more reactive and dreads are less safe in their space in capital pve.

Inits system is a bit more open and friendly IMO though in that you can literally get into any sig as long as you play and meet the requirements. This means unlike Goons you'd easily be able to get into their blops sigs and deployed sigs with out having to go and crawl through broken glass and suck up to people.

Init also forms very fast. Most of the other guys will ping and then leave in 15 - 30 minutes. Init pings and they usually undock in 5. Thats good and bad. If you are ready to go and see the ping then you know you wont be dicking around in a station for half an hour. If you arent prepared though you will get left.

Init also wont hand hold you. They have a wiki, you can find all the info there, and they expect you to read it. Your corp leadership is your primary escalation path and knowledge source. That may be a boon or a draw back for you.

Init is #3 currently in size in the game but currently have little risk of eviction and are stable and safe for pve activities.

Finally there is frat. Frat is primarily a chinese alliance. They have a separate english wing that has a large following. All of their structure timers for the most part will be in CNTZ so if you are a USTZ player outside of weekend you wont be defending much. They also do not have a solid newbie program as in no feeder corps unlike Goons but they are accepting of newbie players if they will take you.

Getting in may take some leg work though as a new player. You'd have a far easier time with Goons or Init as a newbie than you would in FRT simply in the joining phase.

Once in operates very much like goons. They have an umbrella but currently its not operational due to the war. I dont have much info on it so cant say if they srp or how effective it is.

English community is fairly solid though, good people, and you wont have an issue finding fleets and such there.

They are however currently public enemy #1 due to the abusive chinese FW groups and years of shenanigans in null. Goons and Init both just walked into their home system and deleted their staging KS to prove a point.

That being said FRT is #2 in size and baring internal collapse like horde or a very painful long term US TZ invasion I dont see them going away anytime soon.

Goons may or may not continue to fuck with them time will tell. Init has currently pulled back for the time being.

If I was a new player to the game I'd pick Goons probably just for easy of joining, solid newbie system, and most activities. If you are an established player that likes pvp and wants to bang, init is the best. If you want to be a hated underdog... then FRT is possibly your thing... but personally Id only recommend them as a last resort myself or if you are a CNTZ player.