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lemmy·Lemmybymaltfield

Comparison of Lemmy Instances

I created a repo on GitHub that has a table comparing all the known lemmy instances

Why?

When I joined lemmy, I had to join a few different instances before I realized that:

  1. Some instances didn't allow you to create new communities
  2. Some instances were setup with an allowlist so that you couldn't subscribe/participate with communities on (most) other instances
  3. Some instances disabled important features like downvotes
  4. Some instances have profanity filters or don't allow NSFW content

I couldn't find an easy way to see how each instance was configured, so I used lemmy-stats-crawler and GitHub actions to discover all the Lemmy Instances, query their API, and dump the information into a data table for quick at-a-glance comparison.

I hope this helps others with a smooth migration to lemmy. Enjoy :)

Comparison of Lemmy Instanceshttps://github.com/maltfield/awesome-lemmy-instancesOpen linkView original on lemmy.ml
151
Comments120
maltfieldreply
lemmy.ml

Thanks for sharing! How did you find that one? Do you know who runs it? I really, really like that they have an uptime monitor.

4
mobiuscoffeereply
sh.itjust.works

I saw it somewhere on lemmy shortly after joining. I then left the tab open thinking it'd be useful but unfortunately lost the thread!

2
poVoqreply
slrpnk.net

Yes, it uses a standard called NodeInfo2 that many Fediverse projects and XMPP / Matrix etc. expose.

4
wiki_mereply
lemmy.ml

This project seems not well maintained (see this), I suggest this as an alternative (click "all columns").

3
kjrreply
kbin.social

@poVoq Information in both list is completly different. For instance, in the list in github almost all instances accept new users, what is not the case in the-federation.

@maltfield

2
poVoqreply
slrpnk.net

This is just a difference in how "sign upd only with admin approval" is handled.

2
tmpodreply
lemmy.pt

Was about to post the same hehe That website is pretty great, specially like the charts!

1
Lenins2ndCatreply
lemmy.ml

About 300 active users every day

Underselling it? 431 currently logged in at time of this comment and it hits 600 concurrently logged in at peak time basically every day. The statistic this repo uses is also:

**Users ** The number of users that have been active on this instance this month

By that metric I think Hexbear is still the largest lemmy instance. It would be the third on this list if you only count daily concurrent login peak.

4
Lenins2ndCatreply
lemmy.ml

I see, so it's commenting accounts per hour. Would be interesting to see what the commenting accounts per month is to more accurately compare to this list. Although this list doesn't make it clear whether they are using accounts that have commented or accounts that have simply participated via logging in and voting, I would personally include any voting account as "active".

3
Lenins2ndCatreply
lemmy.ml

Only wish we knew what the definition of "active" being used was more clearly.

4
Lenins2ndCatreply
lemmy.ml

I mean in this git. "Active" is at the entire discretion of the person that made this list and is not quite fully defined.

2
maltfieldreply
lemmy.ml

Instances aren't added manually. They're discovered using lemmy-stats-crawler.

As long as your instance is federating, active, and the API is reachable then it will make it onto the list.

Edit: It looks like your instance's API isn't reachable, which may be why it's missing:

Please fix the availability of your instance's API.

4
Cadendereply
lemmygrad.ml

hexbear is currently running an old version of lemmy that doesn't support the v3 API or federation. migration to a more modern lemmy is in progress

4
Barbarian
lemmy.reckless.dev

You're awesome man! This is direly needed. I'm just wondering how on earth to publicize this before the madness that hits on Monday.

Any chance you could find a place to fit this in the join lemmy site and do a pull request before then? I know it's a lot to ask, but it would be huge.

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maltfieldreply
lemmy.ml

I see TypeScript and get scared. Personally, I do think that the join-lemmy.org/instances page should link to:

  1. My table comparison https://github.com/maltfield/awesome-lemmy-instances
  2. The Lemmy Community Browser (to find communities across all instances) https://browse.feddit.de/
  3. The Lemmy Map https://lemmymap.feddit.de/
  4. The federation's lemmy page (with another table comparing instances) https://the-federation.info/platform/73

Can anyone with TypeScript experience make this PR for us? Here's the relevant file:

6
abraxasreply
lemmy.ml

You thinking just a with the 4 links in it and a header of some sort? Mock or description or anything?

5
maltfieldreply
lemmy.ml

I think at the top, just above the "Recommended" add:

For a more detailed comparison of Lemmy instances, see:

<ul>
<li><a href="https://github.com/maltfield/awesome-lemmy-instances">Awesome-Lemmy-Instances on GitHub</a></li>
<li><a href="https://the-federation.info/platform/73">the-federation.info Lemmy Instances Page</a></li>
<li><a href="https://lemmymap.feddit.de/">Feddit's Lemmymap</a></li>
</ul>

After you create an account, you can find communites across all instances using <a href="https://browse.feddit.de/">Feddit's Lemmy Community Browser</a>

<h2>Recommended</h2>
...
7
abraxasreply
lemmy.ml

Translation merged. Actual HTML in full PR. Once/if @[email protected] approves, we'll be.... Nevermind, he just approved it. He said it'll be live in an hour or two.

There wasn't really anything that resembled typescript changes ultimately. The submoduled translations were the only real time sink there.

5
Barbarianreply
lemmy.reckless.dev

abraxas said he was a typescript vet just earlier, maybe we can coax him into having a look? xD

Worth a shot at least.

EDIT: Just shot him a message

3
abraxasreply
lemmy.ml

Unfortunately I also have very little free time. If you're not in a hurry and nobody does it before me, I can take a look. Wish I could set a reminder in Lemme. Anyone code the remindme bot yet? LOL.

!remindme 1 week

EDIT: Well shit, yes the deadline for a lot of things is next monday isn't it. Lemme see if I can squeeze in a little time tomorrow morning or evening, if one of my jobs isn't overwhelmingly crazy, I might be able to. It's just adding a few links in the "Lemmy Servers" body text? Any UI standard?

I'm a TS vet, but green on lemmy UI design.

7
abraxasreply
lemmy.ml

Updated my original message. If I can make time, I need a little more precise info about what/where on the links. It looks like a short enough PR as long as I know exactly what the links should look like

3
A_Areply
lemmy.world

reminder : it's been a week !
( + a few hours 😌 ! )

1
smartwater0897reply
lemmy.ml

I think it's better with less choices for beginners actually. I remember a lot of people didn't get started on mastadon because they were afraid to pick an instance.

It's almost so it would be good if this could just be a checkbox "pick a good instance for me" and it would pick a medium populated instance from the list.

2
Ada
lemmy.blahaj.zone

Users can create communities on Blahaj Lemmy. Most of our communities are created by users

9
maltfieldreply
lemmy.ml

Hmm, I see community_creation_admin_only is set to false on the API. I'll look into this, thanks for letting me know :)

Edit: should be fixed now. Please let me know if you find any other issues :)

7
Betoreply
lemmy.studio

Same for lemmy.studio, I have community creation open for everyone. Not sure why it shows as false.

What's the API endpoint? I'll double toggle the option to see if it fixes it, maybe it is set to admin only even if the UI shows the opposite.

4
KNovareply
links.dartboard.social

I wonder how the user account is calculated too. I think Dartboard Links (links.dartboard.social) has about 10 users now.

3
KNovareply
links.dartboard.social

I'm a pretty fresh instance (Saturday I think) so it might only be calculated once a week? idk

3
Nutomicreply
lemmy.ml

It only counts users who posted or commented during that time.

5
pyarra
vlemmy.net

I also recently just created my instance vlemmy.net, I dont mind anyone joining and creating their community's there. Dont really have any restrictions either. Would be nice to learn some new things from our internet friends

8
maltfieldreply
lemmy.ml

how do you do that? Is there a guide anywhere for how to setup mastodon seeing lemmy or lemmy seeing mastodon?

4
Claude Gohierreply
mastodon.xyz

@maltfield
You can follow users or communities from Mastodon.

The magic of ActivityPub.

Just search for the user or community's url in mastodon, You can then follow from the result.

3
honk
feddit.de

How do you check wether nsfw content is allowed?

Because my instance (feddit.de) doesn‘t allow pornographic material. I guess that doesn‘t exclude all nsfw content. But the column header is called adult and it makes it seem like „adult content“ aka porn was allowed.

*edit fixed typo

6
maltfieldreply
lemmy.ml

It doesn't say porn, it says adult. The legend describes how it's determined

Adult "Yes" means there's no profanity filters or blocking of NSFW content. "No" means that there are profanity filters or NSFW content is not allowed.

6
maegul (he/they)
lemmy.ml

It would be nice for those elsewhere on the fediverse to know when an instance is aligned with or run by the same people as an existing mastodon or other kind of instance.

Pretty sure nothing conventional is exposed for that sort of information, but it could be useful in the future. Maybe a general description field that can contain that sort of information.

4
abraxas
lemmy.ml

Shooting for this. It's not beautiful but it's not ugly:

Gonna have to dance around the i8n library for this PR, but it shoudl be possible.

4
bouncing
partizle.com

It would probably be useful, but harder to collect, a summary of:

  • Primary/intended topics or users (eg, tech, politics, regional, etc)
  • Any unusual moderation patterns
  • Most/least blocked
4
smartwater0897
lemmy.ml

Great work! Can you include the instance description in this list also?

Also i would love to see country but that's doesn't seem to be included in the Lemmy app. I guess you could do a ip lookup on some service to see country if you really wanted to.

3
maltfieldreply
lemmy.ml

I think the description would be too long and clutter the table. I'd be down for descriptions on-hover, but I'd have to switch platforms (from GitHub markdown) for that afaik.

You can also get the country from this list. I don't know how they do it (maybe IP lookup)

5
maltfieldreply
lemmy.ml

Shiit, it would be much easier for me to write it out to a CSV than to a damn markdown table. Thanks for the great suggestion :)

Edit: @[email protected] the table is now available as a spreadsheet

10
_NetNomad @ DXC
forum.dxcomplex.com

are manual additions allowed? our host's security blocks some bot traffic and is currently not playing nicely with the stats crawler

2
maltfieldreply
lemmy.ml

Manually maintaining is not realistic.

If your API is read-only and you're blocking bot traffic from querying it, you're doing it wrong. Please be nice to the bots. And also users that use VPNs, privacy plugins, etc. You'll false-positive block them, and that's not very nice.

6
_NetNomad @ DXCreply
forum.dxcomplex.com

definitely agree. I don't control our host's policy but i will pass that along. some bot traffic is allowed- we were on the join-lemmy site two days ago and i have a bot running this very minute- i think they're still just trying to dial in the right balance between two much and not enough security

4
wiki_me
lemmy.ml

It says i can't downvote on beehaw , but going to this (beehaw community post) and downvoting workds.

2
amiuhlereply
feddit.de

Does this mean that Beehaw users can't downvote on any other instances whereas users from other instances can downvote Beehaw content?

4
awdsnsreply
feddit.de

I read that they just ignore incoming downvotes, so on Beehaw you'd never see them, only locally on the instance where you voted.

3
amiuhlereply
feddit.de

That would be the proper way to implement this, but I can confirm that I'm able to downvote Beehaw content from this instance, it shows my downvote and the vote count decrements by one. Maybe it's just a caching thing.

7
awdsnsreply
feddit.de

I have the impression that the federation thing as a whole still has some issues. Like I checked some of my submissions on different instances and it would sometimes show different comment counts, but the comment which would explain the difference was nowhere to be seen. So it wouldn't surprise me if vote (non-)propagation also doesn't always work as intended.

4
smartwater0897
lemmy.ml

I'm a little bit confused by the federation thing. How would I let my instance talk to any other instance except the ones I blacklist?

1
smartwater0897reply
lemmy.ml

Oh I see. I had put Lemmy.ml on the allowed list and never intended other instanced to not be allowed.

Fixed, thank you!

3
poVoq
slrpnk.net

The new user registration doesn't map to the recommended setting of admin approval only. There have been massive spam account registrations waves in the past and if you can't monitor your instance 24/7 this is the only way to prevent having your instance blocked because of that.

1
maltfieldreply
lemmy.ml

The NU field is determined by checking the registration_mode field in the API. If that's set to closed then I say No. Otherwise, I mark it as Yes.

So if it's open or require_application, I list it as Yes.

Is there an issue with how I've set this up? If so, please name a specific instance and what it should say vs what the table says.

1
poVoqreply
slrpnk.net

Ah, I managed to mis-read the table. Seems ok for my instance (slrpnk.net). However we do allow users to create new communities.

2
maltfieldreply
lemmy.ml

I just rebuilt it and fixed the NC field. Please let me know if you find any other issues

1
poVoqreply
slrpnk.net

Seems ok now.

Unrelated: maybe you can query the server location? Especially if it is in the EU or not and thus falls under better user data protection (GDPR)?

1