[cesarb]

> https://mas.to/@paulg seems to have been hugged to death already :)

You can watch the account in your own instance (if someone on your instance has already followed him, which is likely for larger instances). Just go to https://example.org/@[e-mail] (replace the domain with your favorite instance's domain).

(Edit: fixed typo)

[DonHopkins]

Does it make any sense to spin up your own little Mastodon server just for you and your most trusted friends, so you don't have to spend any time moderating content?

[davidgerard]

Yes, but the main problem is that Mastodon is very large and fat. Running it for more than a few people is expensive.

There's also Pleroma (the Akkoma fork is recommended) and Misskey.

There are people working on server software to be fully a part of Mastodon without spending $30/month. It should be possible to do this much more efficiently.

[davidw]

As a BEAM fan, Pleroma looks interesting, but "which fork of the Elixir project that is related to Mastodon" is... peak open source isn't it? In all the good ways and bad ways.

https://www.reddit.com/r/Pleroma/comments/yu8xof/pleromas_re...

I wonder what the resource requirements of that look like compared to the default Mastodon thing.

[DonHopkins]

Mastodon is large and fat??!

Finally an honestly named piece of software.

If I'm already running a moderately sized $30-or-so-per-month server with its own local database process, that's not very busy. Should it fit on that kind of system just fine, or does it need a lot of CPU, memory, disk space, and/or network bandwidth? Or do you think I'd have to upgrade to a 50-or-so-per-month server?

Again, not planning on having many people use it, but I'm just wondering how much baseline and peak overhead there is to just being on the network, along various dimensions.

[rsolva]

I've run GoToSocial as my personal instance for a few weeks and although it is still a very young project, it has worked reliably for me. Since it is a Go project is bare uses any resources, ~100mb RAM and almost zero CPU. I host 3 personal accounts connected to ~1000 accounts (folliwers and followed) in total. Run it on my Proxmox at home.

[patch_cable]

Mentioned above, but I’ve been running Akkoma on a OCI free tier ARM instance with no issues.

[genghisjahn]

https://marketplace.digitalocean.com/apps/mastodon

My costs are more like $18/month.

[monkeywork]

Yes I wish we could have some sort of rule where you could never have more than 100 or so people per server and the community really really focused on making the deploy instructions as simple as possible for people to use with things like Oracles free tier, or the low cost VPS's out there.

Mastodon instances with 10's of thousands of users is a TERRIBLE idea for the long term viability of the service.

[kibwen]

I agree that having enormous general "catch-all" servers will inevitably lead to low-quality cesspits (like Twitter). But topical mastodon instances are approximately federated subreddits, and subreddits can maintain reasonable quality even with 10,000 subscribers (but once you get much larger than that you start having problems).

[monkeywork]

This isn't a subreddit - I don't care if everyone on the server is into the same "niche" or "hobby". Here are the problems I see:

1. Moderation issues, primarily with regards to federation between instances. As an admin it's much harder to moderate with tons of users in a consistent manner, and as a user it's hard not to get screwed over by overly reactive admins either on your instance or other large instances banning your instance. I've seen tons of "guilt by association" bans on mastodon, hell I've seen people judging and domain blocking people based on the SOFTWARE they use (because they dislike the politics of that developer - not because anything that anyone on the particular instance did).

2. Privacy concerns, especially around how mastodon handles "private messages". When you are on a server that everyone is sharing a niche hobby there is a HIGHER possibility that your admin may snoop on your messages out of curiosity (or whatever justification they can generate).

3. Costs both $ and resources on these larger instances. Eventually someone will need to pay a bill and $$ pressures can lead to bad decisions.

In my opinion people should be:

1. Generally having their own stand alone instance. 2. Sharing an instance with close family / friends 3. Having secondary accounts on company / organizations instances 4. Having a read-only account on one of the larger instances just to assist in searching, discovery, etc.

[OctopusLupid]

Related link advocating for the same thing: https://runyourown.social/

[DonHopkins]

My main concern isn't CPU performance, but that I don't want to spend any of my own time moderating, and just let on people and robots I trust, if anyone at all.

Sounds like it's easy to install on the cloud. Would it make sense to run it on a home server with a good broadband consumer internet connection like fiber?

Is there a lot of traffic normally, pushing or pulling or polling?

[Animats]

> never have more than 100 or so people per server

Is the performance that bad?

[dsr_]

No, it's to encourage communities to form and admins to be able to have minimal relationships with their users.

[kragen]

no, dealing with thousands of users is that bad on an interpersonal level

[pimeys]

I am running Akkoma which is an Elixir server with Mastodon-compatible API. Super fast and runs well with my 10€ two server Hetzner setup.

https://akkoma.dev/AkkomaGang/akkoma/

[patch_cable]

I am also running Akkoma on a free-tier OCI ARM instance. It runs great.

Akkoma also works with the official Mastodon mobile app.

[PierceJoy]

Isn’t that just a private Discord? Or do you specifically mean something you can host yourself?

[jacquesm]

If you're going down that road count me in, I'll chip in for expenses as well, obviously.

[DonHopkins]

I know you're actually a robot, so I trust you! It's those pesky humans I'm worried about.

Oh shit did I just ROBODOX you, buddy?

[jacquesm]

Ah... guilty as charged. I'll go drink some engine oil now, I feel a bit rusty. Need to recharge soon as well.

[Tepix]

Very much so!

[bhoops]

working example: https://x.goonj.xyz/@[e-mail]