I want to host a fediverse instance but I need it to be light (limited system resources). Mastodon seems to be kinda heavy. GotoSocial is supposedly very light? (but limited on functionality?) is Pixelfed much heavier? Bonfire is built on elixir so should also be light? Akkoma? Pleroma?
Also, I need it to be engaging to people migrating mostly from IG, so I do need some bells/whistles I guess
thanks!
EDIT: The instance is supposed to be hosting a community of 100-200 people. Maybe even more in the future (in which case we would probably migrate to another server)
Having a “facebook pages” / mini website / pixelfed portfolio is very functional for the people I plan to invite.
@geoma My other random though is that for instagram people the choice of app you recommend is probably as important as the backend that you use. Since thats the ui they experience.
If you want Instagram users to move, there’s no real alternative to Pixelfed. You can literally move an entire account full of images and posts over from Instagram to Pixelfed.
If, however, you’re seriously eyeing Bonfire, check Hubzilla. Bonfire promises lots of stuff. Hubzilla offers more than what Bonfire even only promises and then some. Also, while Bonfire is still in fairly early development, Hubzilla is tried-and-true, stable software that has been in development since 2012, for even longer than Mastodon. And Hubzilla only needs a LAMP stack. Basically, Bonfire is Hubzilla from Wish.com at best. And AFAIK, Hubzilla even needs fewer server resources per user than Friendica.
Downsides: There’s no phone app (but then, there’s none for Bonfire either). You’ve got no other choice but to use the Web interface; at least Hubzilla can be installed on phones as a Progressive Web App. On top of that, especially the default theme is not really user-friendly and kind of stuck in the early 2010s, and for alternative themes, you need to include third-party repositories into your installation. Posting images isn’t as straight-forward as on typical social media; it’s more like a blog in the sense of having to upload image files before you can use them. And if you want alt-texts, you have to learn to get your hands dirty on BBcode.
IMHO PWAs are ok… there’s really no need for an app for every web service
It’s just that hardly anyone knows that PWAs exist, much less how to “install” them.
That, and most phone users prefer native mobile app UIs to Web UIs that don’t look like native apps.
Then again, I guess it’s theoretically possible to build a Hubzilla theme that does look like an iOS app.
pp (but then, there’s none for Bonfire either). You’ve got no other choice but to use the Web interface; at least Hubzilla can be installed on phones as a Progressive Web App. On top of that, especially the default theme is not really user-friendly and kind of stuck in the early 2010s, and for alternative themes, you
I’ve messed a bit with Hubzilla but found its interface to be kinda old dated looking. It is not a problem for me, but I want to host a server in which I can manage to gradually migrate users from IG to the fedi, and I’m not sure if Hubzilla fits the bill. IOne thing I do love about Hubzilla is that ist kinda allows you to host your own “site”, like facebook pages… IMHO this is a great niche for the Fediverse by allowing people that don’t have a website, to solve their website needs and social network needs in one place. Of course a website is a website and I hope every entrepreneur has one, but in real life sadly most people don’t, as IG sequestered this function.
Of course, if you’re hosting your own hub, you aren’t bound to the vanilla features and the one standard theme or whatever some hub admin has installed. Hubzilla is not only modular, it’s also extensible by simply adding a third-party git repository with apps and/or themes to your hub installation.
I think the currently best third-party theme bundle is the Utsukta Themes.
theme
these themes look awesome. Seems I will be giving hubzilla another try.
@geoma I’m really interested in what you are doing. Are you aware of coopcloud.tech ? this is designed to make deloyment of apps across multiple servers. My thought was that perhaps you could go wider but deeper and offer to setup a series of Yunhost instances - and then federating them (Nextcloud, ActivityPub etc) for each organisation?
You could then use more basic tech at each location / for each organisation and get the benefit of them providing backup to each other.
Id actually been looking at doing this for sailingclubs - They need Web/Customer Relationship -Membership Management as well social media integration.
If you are engaging with people who are currently on Insta etc. you may also need to look at something like #Postiz postiz.com/ - to message out to FB , Insta etc and include links back to ActivityPub/Websites to encourage people to migrate.
So coopcloud.tech is like a yunohost of sorts but made for deploying on multiple servers so you have mirrors for duplication/high availability?
I’ll check out postiz. thanks!
@geoma I think its more that you can run it across multiple compute instances - and for multiple organisations. So its supporting the case where your compute requirements have grown beyond one vm (or you want redundancy ) and where you have multiple organisations that you want to support multiple independent instances of the same (or different) suite of applications.
What do you think of Friendica? It only needs PHP and a database.
I think it looks kinda ugly? But could do… But between Friendica and Pixelfed, Pixelfed looks much sexier
Yeah, the interface isn’t winning any beauty pageants, but it’s the most feature-rich software I know; the question is, how do you use social media?
I guess it doesn’t matter how much I use it, but how the people I want to help migrate do use it… and they mostly use Instagram as a (lousy) swiss knife… About friendica, is it lightweight? do you have an idea in howit compares to akkoma in resource usage?
I can’t compare it to Akoma, but since it’s purely PHP and SQL-based, I’d consider it one of the most lightweight platforms alongside GoToSocial.
What about Pixelfed? That’s probably the closest thing to Instagram.
Yes, Pixelfed is beautiful but I doubt its performance (resource usage). Do you know how it compares to Friendica in that sense?
No, I’ve never compared the services based on resource consumption; I’ve never really cared about that before.
@geoma @Tealk I can’t answer you on that but perhaps others have more direct experience. #Friendica can do groups but maybe not pages.
What’s limiting you on CPU? I guess number of users is not so much an important metric more number of concurrent users
Friendica does not have pages functionality? More than CPU, I guess main limitation is RAM?
I am running yunohost and have a pretty decent computer but I am sharing it for a bunch of different services so I need to keep usage as light as possible
@geoma Oh right yeah I am using a VPS. What kind of specs does your server have?
