this post was submitted on 13 Jun 2023
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Should I host my own instance if I don't intend to run a community? (lemmy.world)
submitted 3 years ago by AbsurdityAccelerator@lemmy.world to c/selfhosted@lemmy.world
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Is there any benefit to host my own instance?

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[–] leopardboy@netmonkey.tech 2 points 3 years ago (5 children)

I think it's a matter of personal preference.

I've been running my own Mastodon instance for several months now, and I've enjoyed it. I don't have to rely on someone else, either, which is nice. I'm in control of everything on that instance.

As for Lemmy, I just started my own instance today, and am currently writing you from it. What made me decide to setup my own instance was some performance issues I was seeing with Lemmy.world, although that might have been an UI problem. Anyway, I enjoy doing this stuff, so I'm running my own instance for the sake of doing it.

On the flip side, it's more expensive and time consuming, and I'm the one who has to worry about backing up data, etc. Like I said, though, I enjoy doing it, so it's no big deal.

[–] useful_idiot@lemmy.world 1 points 3 years ago

I already have a nomad cluster in my homelab, running Lemmy is a no brainer.

[–] drlecompte@discuss.tchncs.de 0 points 3 years ago (1 children)

I run my own Mastodon instance, but for Lemmy it seemed more logical to join an existing instance that aligned with my interests. I wouldn't be adverse to abandoning my self-hosted Mastodon for a shared instance, but I would prefer a small instance run by and for people I know, rather than one of the huge ones.

[–] leopardboy@netmonkey.tech 1 points 3 years ago

What might make you want to ditch your self-hosted Mastodon instance?

With Lemmy, I didn't feel a need to pick any specific instance because I can follow communities from anywhere, and it seems to work pretty well.

One downside I've encountered with my own Lemmy instance is that post and comment history in the communities I follow begins when I started following them on my new instance. New posts and comments are federated my way, going forward, but I don't have the ability to go back and view as much history as one would on lemmy.world or lemmy.ml, for example.

[–] immediate_winter@lemmy.world 0 points 3 years ago (1 children)

how much does your mastadon instance cost per month? what do you expect for lemmy?

[–] leopardboy@netmonkey.tech 1 points 3 years ago (1 children)

I'm using Linode, and their prices are publicly available.

https://www.linode.com/pricing/

For Mastodon, I'm using the Linode 4 GB while the Lemmy server runs on the Linode 2 GB option. Both are under the Shared CPU pricing -- not dedicated.

[–] immediate_winter@lemmy.world 1 points 3 years ago* (last edited 3 years ago)

thanks for all of the information you've shared in this thread.

i was put off by the cost and effort involved in maintaining a mastadon instance when i looked into that a while back, but i'm glad to hear that lemmy could be cheaper.

[–] dart@lemmy.fmhy.ml 0 points 3 years ago (1 children)

On the flip side, it's more expensive

Can you go into more detail on this?

[–] leopardboy@netmonkey.tech 1 points 3 years ago

Sure.

I run my own instance at a cloud provider, and thus have monthly expenses I wouldn't normally incur, if I were using a public instance.

[–] JCreazy@midwest.social 0 points 3 years ago (1 children)

Can you tell me a bit about the process you went through to create your own instance? I'd like to make one myself.

[–] leopardboy@netmonkey.tech 0 points 3 years ago (1 children)

You're talking about Lemmy, right?

I provisioned an Ubuntu 22.02 server at Linode. I chose their 2 GB Shared CPU instance type. Once I configured the server to my liking, I ran through the Lemmy-Ansible instructions. (They have other methods, so check the documentation.)

Essentially, you install Ansible on your workstation. I'm on macOS and installed it via Homebrew. You then download their git repository, create the necessary configuration files, and then have Ansible configure the server. It was fairly simple.

[–] JCreazy@midwest.social 0 points 3 years ago

I may go that route. I was wanting to host my own server but I feel like it would be easier to just use a cloud server