After spending a few days learning about lemmy and other fediverse websites, I was curious about people's processes for picking a server that is right for them. I've seen most posts say to pick one that is not too big or small and that has similar interests as yourself. But if we are all mostly federated, doesn't it make the most sense to join the biggest or likeliest server to stay around and federated with the most other servers? Then you can just travel to the instances you share interests in. I chose this instance because you could just sign up and be in it, and that was all I needed to check things out. And although I found many communities in other instances, even if let's say all of my subscribed communities are on other instances, doesn't it make sense to just stay here so long as they are federated with sh.itjust.works? It may be too early to know for sure, but it seems like this instance is going to stick around for the foreseeable future, why risk joining the smaller instances that might not be here for long. Also, if you have subscribed communities in several instances, I assume you have to follow all the different server's rules. I'd be curious to hear other people's thoughts in regards to picking a home instance.
Edit: Are there any restrictions to interacting with communities on other instances?
I avoided the bigger ones because they seemed to be under the heaviest load and thus most buggy/quirky.
I also wanted one to be more apolitical. So I went there first. Then that one had a multi-day outage. Then tried kbin but became flustered by its own immaturity (code wise) and struggles.
Eventually I just built my own instance.
@OP. Id pick an instance mostly open and federated with the larger communities. Even smaller instances are good here. The. Head to this page: https://lemmyverse.net/
Hit the house button and type your instance url and load up on subscriptions.
I hadn't considered making my own instance for private use. Not sure if that was what you meant or not. But it may be the safest way of ensuring your data doesn't get lost. My worry with small servers is that who ever is running them might lose interest and shut down permanently. But if a server is too big, there may be disagreements that lead to de-federating. Thanks for the tips.
Yep. That’s exactly what I did. So I can control my backups etc. their Ansible docs are solid and work fine. I would imagine the docker are as well since the Ansible docs just initiate a remote docker install.
I’ve done some setup and have been chewing on opening it up come July if there’s a huge flood.
But it’s gonna be a user only instance in that case. I have no time or desire to moderate people’s nonsense in communities. Heck even the prospect of moderating reports of their nonsense in other communities isn’t really appealing.
So the concern on smaller ones petering out, may not be too far off. Mine will likely be up for at least a year. And I will let folks know before I shut it down, if it’s opened up.
How did you set yours up? Did you have a server already or are you using a cloud service?
Mines on a cloud instance. I have a lab and such. But my power is shoddy during the rainy season and as a result internet can be too. I also have asymmetrical internet so upload is constrained at times.
So mines on a VPS. Specifically a linode. I used the Ansible server in my lab to run through the Ansible setup.
Currently it’s the 2cpu/4gb of ram dedicated instance. 36/month. But ram usage is hovering around 768 MB. Cpu is averaging 8-10%. Im gonna leave it there until at least the hard app/api cut with Reddit. Still haven’t decided on whether I’m going to open it up or just keep it personal and what that commitment entails. I’ve hosted stuff before, there’s pros and cons. But I’m slammed at work and personal life. So really not wanting to take on more responsibility.
Well, you've confirmed for me that this is a bit above my head without doing more research. Thank you for the information.
I just have a nice short url I'm not really using and thought maybe it'd be neat. I guess there's no rush.
Yeah. Sorry to disappoint :(
I wouldnt be shocked if they make setting up an instance or someone ends up just being able to get a SaaS instance pre-deployed for you with just your domain name and admin stuff. Kinda like how you can rent game servers or teamspeak servers etc.
No, no it's fine. It's still attainable if I really want it and I'm sure you're right. It's only going to get easier.