Just wanted to share a thread for those who don't regularly venture out of the bear site. Can't cross-post since it's defederated. It's small but has some numbers about community counts, active users, etc and links to more info from https://lemmyverse.net/. Thought it was notable that Hexbear shows up no matter how you sort it.
OP image is community count sorted by active users in the last month.
Edit: sorted by comments
Having an established userbase and actual community beyond the frame of "not reddit" will do that. Other instances are free to develop their own niches, Hexbear has just had a 4 year headstart on all of the Reddit refugees.