Out of curiosity I’m currently considering to self-host a Lemmy and a Mastodon instance. Just for me (and maybe 2-3 close friends) privately. The proposition of having full control over my social media sounds appealing to me.
However, I’m not a software developer and I have next to no experience in self-hosting anything. Also, I don’t plan to make self-hosting a hobby of mine.
Given these circumstances - how much time investment do you think is needed to keep everything running smoothly. I wouldn’t mind spending 1-2 hours a week, but if it’s more like 1-2 hours a day, I would stay clear.
Also, are there resources for troubleshooting available? I found the installations guides and some seem to be quite good for a layperson, giving step-by-step advice, however where to go if it doesn’t work?
I’m trying to make up my mind if it would be worthwhile to try or if I set myself up with wasting a lot of time :) So, any advise is welcome.
I’ve had some bad experience setting up Mastodon. Tried everything, docker, baremetal, OS package, local build… In the end I decided to use Pleroma. Infinitely simpler.
Lemmy is also pretty easy to setup if you don’t use Docker.
As to maintenance, my experience has been…I don’t have to. For small instances, things could generally run themselves indefinitely. I have a dozen servers running on my VPS, ranging from telegram bots to websites to things like Lemmy. Some of them receivs a fair amount of traffic. I pretty much never need to login to my VPS.
My advice is. Try to keep wat you selfhost doable to run /set up. Selfhosting can be a rewarding hobby. But also a lot of work depending what you want to host. Just take your time. And plan things out.
Honestly, if you don’t feel like self-hosting could be a hobby, just don’t do it.
If done correctly, it can take up quite some time, but that can definitely be worth it (privacy, freedom, hobby/fun, etc). But if not done correctly, that can cause problems in security, performance, compatibility and perhaps even financials.
Just find an instance you like (read the rules about privacy, allowed languages, allowed content, etc) and create an account there.
