I am looking to host a fediverse platform for a community of non-tech people. These people use mostly ig and some still fb. These people are from a network of schools which are ideologically aligned with libre software and decentralisation. It will include adults and also teenagers, who mostly use IG. This is part of a plan of a massive migration to ethical platforms. I am trying to choose the fittest fediverse solution to these, also considering that I am not sure how much my home server will be capable of sustaining, so the platform should ideally be as lightweight as possible. I am considering mastodon, pixelfed, misskey and sharkey, and some people have suggested akkoma.

What would you recommend? Thanks!!

  • @[email protected]English
    2•3 months ago

    IMO, this is one of the main ways the fediverse should seek to grow: Setup fediverse instances run by universities and government institutions.

  • abeorch
    2•3 months ago

    @geoma Id go for Friendica - its a good mix i think will grow overtime to include different usage types

    • geomaOP
      1•3 months ago

      I have the idea that friendica is kinda old/outdated… Am I mistaken?

      • abeorch
        1•3 months ago

        @geoma Not sure why… I mean what functionality doesn’t work that makes you think that? Is there anything Mastodon does that Frendica doesn’t?

        • geomaOP
          1•3 months ago

          I have no idea It’s just a vague feeling, not based in any experience whatsoever. What about resource usage?

          • abeorch
            2•2 months ago

            @geoma I’m running on a free Oracle Instance and spinning up a separate instance on RBPi but not having any issues.

  • poVoq
    17•11 months ago

    I think once groups land in Pixelfed and the new app is released on the official app-stores, which will hopefully both happen this month, it is probably the best option if people are used to IG and Facebook.

    • OtterEnglish
      3•11 months ago

      Oh I didn’t know there was a new app coming out, is the original one being rebuilt?

      • poVoq
        3•11 months ago

        According to the main developer’s mastodon feed, yes.

    • geomaOP
      2•11 months ago

      I wonder if pixelfed is resource hungry? As mastodon?

      • poVoq
        3•11 months ago

        It’s written in php Laravel, so it should be somewhat more lightweight than Mastodon, but not massively so.

        Mastodon also has a bit of an unjustified bad reputation for that… yes for very small instances it is a resource hog, but it scales reasonably well to larger number of users after that initial bump.

    • geomaOP
      5•11 months ago

      Is friendica appealing for teenagers? does the UX feel modern/polished? (this is non relevant for me, but sadly for teens it is so important)

            • geomaOP
              2•11 months ago

              some adults still use fb. I doubt there are students that use fb. they mostly use ig.

                • geomaOP
                  2•11 months ago

                  Ah ok I see… Yes, some adults still use fb but most people use IG…

  • veeeEnglish
    8•11 months ago

    Semi-related but I was thinking about this earlier this year, and I was wondering about the feasibility of posting bus cancellations via the fediverse instead of via a bussing company’s website or email.

    • OtterEnglish
      10•11 months ago

      I think updates like that would do well on Mastodon, it’s the most popular right now so it has a wider reach / support. Similar to what would have been posted to Twitter before

      • @[email protected]
        7•11 months ago

        It definitely seems like a good idea for education services, weather services, local municipal services, and basically all important government institutions to make important announcements and updates via a service they can host themselves or is more distributed, like Mastadon, instead of via Twitter where they have to obey the whims of people like Musk.