Greetings, self-hosting enthusiasts and welcome to the Selfhosted group on Lemmy! I am Fimeg, your tour guide through the labyrinth of digital change. As you’re likely aware, we’re witnessing a considerable transformation in the landscape of online communities, particularly around Reddit. So let’s indulge our inner tech geeks and dive into the details of this issue, and explore how we, as a self-hosting community, can contribute to the solution.
The crux of the upheaval is a policy change from Reddit that’s putting the existence of beloved third-party apps, like Reddit is Fun, Narwhal, and BaconReader, in jeopardy. Reddit has begun charging exorbitant fees for API usage, so much so that Apollo is facing a monthly charge of $1.7 million. The ramifications of these charges have resulted in an outcry from the Reddit community, leading to a number of subreddits planning to go dark in protest.
These actions have pushed many users to seek out alternative platforms, such as Lemmy, to continue their digital explorations. The migration to Lemmy is especially significant for us self-hosters. Third-party applications have long been a critical part of our Reddit experience, offering unique features and user experiences not available on the official app.
As members of the Selfhosted group on Lemmy, we’re not just bystanders in this shift - we have the knowledge, skills, and power to contribute to the solution. One of the ways we can contribute is by assisting with the archiving efforts currently being organized by r/datahoarder on Reddit. As self-hosting enthusiasts, we understand the value of data preservation and have the technical acumen required to ensure the wealth of information on Reddit is not lost due to these policy changes.
So, while we navigate this new territory on Lemmy, let’s continue to engage in productive discussions, share insights, and help to shape the future of online communities. Your decision to join Lemmy’s Selfhosted group signifies a commitment to maintain the spirit of a free and open internet, a cause that is dear to all of us.
Finally, in line with the spirit of the original Reddit post, if you wish to spend money, consider supporting open-source projects or charities that promote a free and accessible internet.
With that, let’s roll up our digital sleeves and embark on this new journey together. Welcome to the Selfhosted group on Lemmy!
I’m thinking about setting up an instance but am worried about costs - can anyone share any information on how much it has cost them so far? Especially the bigger instances, since usage might spike after the Reddit changes kick in, and I’m worried about suddenly getting a huge bill
It cost me nothing really to add the instance but I’ve yet to add a bunch of people talking and communicating - thus filling my drives… In the past I used the Matrix protocol and while it’s entirely different I think for a moderate community we should be able to last a good year on a TB if we has some reasonable limitations on size.
Any guesses on bandwidth usage? I have gig down but only 40Mb up, worried I’d create a bad experience for users if I started getting any actual traffic. I have tons of storage though.
40mbit upload might be a bit tight in the long run, but enough to start out. There are ways to offload bandwith especially for images via caching so that might help as well. Text only doesn’t need much bandwidth.
Judging from my DO usage network chart, with me subscribed to a ton of communities: minimal. Just a lot of API calls back and forth from federated servers.
But yeah, you shouldn’t have any issues with bandwidth if you don’t have a massive amount of users. The big instances are running into bottlenecks related to CPU/disk speed from what I’ve been seeing vs network speed.
Would directing new users to small/self-hosted instances to take (auth/caching…?) load be good, or would it create longer term issues of having potentially unreliable auth front-ends when the bigger guys have better infrastructure?
The bigger instances mostly are fine on the auth side, it’s primarily pictures and some slow SQL stuff being worked on still. So best thing some users can do on smaller instances is be aware that the bigger ones may go up and down a little, so content may come in bursts from the communities on the bigger ones
This is as good a place as any to ask… where should we set up shop? This community’s sole mod @Zoe8338@lemmy.ml doesn’t seem to be active.
A number of different self-hosting related communities have popped up in the last few days. I’m concerned that without a single focal point we won’t hit a critical mass.
I concur and am actively researching this issue as well. I, for example created my own instance but am not entirely sure I should be the one to host yet another Selfhosted community. I am hoping for a dominate 2/3 of them to win out, preferably lemmy.ml as it was the first I discovered. Alas, you asked a very pertinent question that I think you should keep searching to find. I did see the owner on Lemmy.world actually responding to his thread…
We should absolutely instill the desire to keep this community alive though.
Another mod from !selfhosted@lemmy.world here. We are active and this message was already pinned to our community. Our admin is quite active and reachable by XMPP and other methods!
Looking at the list of instances there doesn’t seem to be any really perfect options.
Honestly I would be most comfortable with an instance administrated by several people. It just increases the odds that admins will know what they’re doing and not lose interest.
!lemmy_support@lemmy.ml Might be worth asking on the support page if that would be possible. This community has the most subscribers by a decent amount so I’d think it would be good to try to stay set up on here.
Only becomes a problem if commenters/posters get out of hand. On a more mild topic like self-hosting it’s probably not a massive issue for the foreseeable future.
Getting over-run by blog spam is entirely foreseeable.
With a single dead mod it’s entirely foreseeable that we would have to relocate at some point which could be devastating when trying to preserve whatevers left of the community.
I spun up my own Lemmy server last night in my Kubernetes cluster. It’s great to have the option and wasn’t difficult at all, and once Apollo is gone, I’m thinking I’ll end up using Lemmy exclusively.
With have the huge opportunity of finally escaping censorship on centralized platforms. I honestly never thought Lemmy would take off as it has in the last few days. I started to get pessimistic on the overall death of the internet as I grew to know. This might be a drop of hope in the ocean of corporate greed that’s destroying everything now.
Will setup an instance as well as soon as I have time.
I for one am happy to find a new self-hosted community starting here! It’s the one thing that kept me going back to reddit over the past few months but now am finding more and more I can shift my time here instead.
You are not logged in. However you can subscribe from another Fediverse account, for example Lemmy or Mastodon. To do this, paste the following into the search field of your instance: !selfhost@lemmy.ml
A place to share alternatives to popular online services that can be self-hosted without giving up privacy or locking you into a service you don’t control.
Rules
No harassment
crossposts from c/Open Source & c/docker & related may be allowed, depending on context
Video Promoting is allowed if is within the topic.
glad to be here with you all
LFG 🚀
Deleting Reddit in d-day and blocking it network wide. Off forever
I’m an amateur self hoster but excited to be part of this new community!
This topic should be pinned!
I’m thinking about setting up an instance but am worried about costs - can anyone share any information on how much it has cost them so far? Especially the bigger instances, since usage might spike after the Reddit changes kick in, and I’m worried about suddenly getting a huge bill
I world encourage you to get a few other people involved.
If a server ends up hosting the selfhosted community, there will be some costs and responsibility.
Share the responsibility and increase credibility et cetera.
It cost me nothing really to add the instance but I’ve yet to add a bunch of people talking and communicating - thus filling my drives… In the past I used the Matrix protocol and while it’s entirely different I think for a moderate community we should be able to last a good year on a TB if we has some reasonable limitations on size.
Any guesses on bandwidth usage? I have gig down but only 40Mb up, worried I’d create a bad experience for users if I started getting any actual traffic. I have tons of storage though.
40mbit upload might be a bit tight in the long run, but enough to start out. There are ways to offload bandwith especially for images via caching so that might help as well. Text only doesn’t need much bandwidth.
Judging from my DO usage network chart, with me subscribed to a ton of communities: minimal. Just a lot of API calls back and forth from federated servers.
Nice, I’ll have to spin one up. Cool domain by the way.
Thanks! It’s my “fun” domain.
But yeah, you shouldn’t have any issues with bandwidth if you don’t have a massive amount of users. The big instances are running into bottlenecks related to CPU/disk speed from what I’ve been seeing vs network speed.
Got it, that makes sense.
Would directing new users to small/self-hosted instances to take (auth/caching…?) load be good, or would it create longer term issues of having potentially unreliable auth front-ends when the bigger guys have better infrastructure?
The bigger instances mostly are fine on the auth side, it’s primarily pictures and some slow SQL stuff being worked on still. So best thing some users can do on smaller instances is be aware that the bigger ones may go up and down a little, so content may come in bursts from the communities on the bigger ones
This is as good a place as any to ask… where should we set up shop? This community’s sole mod @Zoe8338@lemmy.ml doesn’t seem to be active.
A number of different self-hosting related communities have popped up in the last few days. I’m concerned that without a single focal point we won’t hit a critical mass.
I concur and am actively researching this issue as well. I, for example created my own instance but am not entirely sure I should be the one to host yet another Selfhosted community. I am hoping for a dominate 2/3 of them to win out, preferably lemmy.ml as it was the first I discovered. Alas, you asked a very pertinent question that I think you should keep searching to find. I did see the owner on Lemmy.world actually responding to his thread…
We should absolutely instill the desire to keep this community alive though.
Another mod from !selfhosted@lemmy.world here. We are active and this message was already pinned to our community. Our admin is quite active and reachable by XMPP and other methods!
Looking at the list of instances there doesn’t seem to be any really perfect options.
Honestly I would be most comfortable with an instance administrated by several people. It just increases the odds that admins will know what they’re doing and not lose interest.
There are now 3 admins! 😄
Sorry, where?
at !selfhosted@lemmy.world
you can checkout lemmy.fmhy.ml (I am one of the admins but its pretty big)
Yeah but “free media heck yeah” might not be the right vibe.
It started with that subreddit but it’s now more of a general instance, but fair.
I wonder if we could petition Lemmy.ml to make the adjustment? I’m not positive how the mod roles function just yet.
You can post a request at https://lemmy.ml/c/community_requests
While I’m immediately tempted to request to be made a mod, I’m going to wait a day or so and see how frequently other new members start posting.
This is my day one, so not ideal for me to make any assertions or claims. I do enjoy the spirit that we have though so far.
!lemmy_support@lemmy.ml Might be worth asking on the support page if that would be possible. This community has the most subscribers by a decent amount so I’d think it would be good to try to stay set up on here.
I will be happy to share and keep people up to date with my projects over on my Lemmy Instance among other places. Please feel free to write anytime!
Self-hosted is one of the subreddits I visited most often, so very interested in having a lively alternative on lemmy.
Is this the best place for us though? @Zoe8338@lemmy.ml is the only mod and they don’t seem to be active.
Only becomes a problem if commenters/posters get out of hand. On a more mild topic like self-hosting it’s probably not a massive issue for the foreseeable future.
My friend would you like to hear about the newest trend in self hosted shitcoins?
Hard disagree.
Getting over-run by blog spam is entirely foreseeable.
With a single dead mod it’s entirely foreseeable that we would have to relocate at some point which could be devastating when trying to preserve whatevers left of the community.
I spun up my own Lemmy server last night in my Kubernetes cluster. It’s great to have the option and wasn’t difficult at all, and once Apollo is gone, I’m thinking I’ll end up using Lemmy exclusively.
With have the huge opportunity of finally escaping censorship on centralized platforms. I honestly never thought Lemmy would take off as it has in the last few days. I started to get pessimistic on the overall death of the internet as I grew to know. This might be a drop of hope in the ocean of corporate greed that’s destroying everything now.
Will setup an instance as well as soon as I have time.
How much is it censorshipfree? How so?
Decentralized
Well said
Thank you, this is one of my favourite community on Reddit, I hope we can make something happen here!
I for one am happy to find a new self-hosted community starting here! It’s the one thing that kept me going back to reddit over the past few months but now am finding more and more I can shift my time here instead.