I'm not an engineer or a dev - but requiring a 32-core, $2000+ CPU to support 12k users doesn't seem like it would scale well. Is this normal, or does the fediverse require more computational resources than a simpler setup like reddit? How would a fediverse instance with 100k users be maintained?
this post was submitted on 12 Jun 2023
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Look at the pricing!
Hetzner wants 150β¬ for this server. 3TB disk is 50β¬ extra. So 200β¬ for the server per month. This is also about 200$ so 1.6Β’ per user and month. This should be very manageable.
Also it doesn't mean the server only holds 12k users. If the server holds 20k users or more you Look at less than a Cent cost per user and month.
They are already raising 600β¬ per month via Patron only so 3 months worth per month. If the server gets bigger, more people will probably give money and while it stays a kinda hobby project it should work out fine.
But you are right with something else:
Lemmy currently has no ability to loadbalance over multiple servers for one instance. This will become a Problem in the future, but it is being worked at.
Reddit is not a "simpler setup". Reddit has gigantic amounts of computational resources to throw at things. Resources that make servers like this look like a Raspberry Pi. They're just much less transparent about how the backend works and what they have.
Was thinking the same thing, is a lemmy instance supposed to be literally a single server instance?
I'm also interested in the answer to this question.
I hope not all people will go back to reddit as soon as the communities go public again.
The two day blackout was what finally got me to actually look into the fediverse, figure out servers and whatnot, and make an account to try it out. I've been meaning to look into it for a while, but the blackout was the push I needed. I'm sure I'm not alone. I'm far more interested in exploring this exciting new space then I am going back to the garbage filled Reddit, even if they miraculously back down on the API changes .
My reddit account was over 10 years old. This is my first comment on Lemmy/Fediverse.
Relate. 12 year account, would like to see this take off. They're not changing.
I will stay here. Did not have this feeling of internet independence for a very long time. I'm done with Reddit.
I don't plan on it. RIF was my main way of browsing Reddit so once that goes, that's pretty much me done. I'll probably still peruse sysadmin for work purposes, but my Reddit time will become Lemmy time.
I am in a transition period where I still keep Apollo installed, and trying to find enough communities here in order to be somewhat ready for the July π
I have deleted nearly 10 years worth of content and account already. Those leaving should do the same.
I'm more or less getting what I wanted out of reddit out of lemmy already. There are a few teething pains, but overall it reminds me of the nice little community we had at reddit in 2007. It got better and better until about 2012 after the big digg migration where it started to peak and devolve. I would love to relive those first 5 years here again. I don't miss reddit at all.
I know I won't!
I'm just gonna browse both for a while I guess. I know I'm not downloading the official app on my phone though
I'm gonna browse Reddit occasionally as well due to its large back content, albeit with adblocks and privacy extensions up and running, but I will only post here. Might be a good idea to mirror anything I end up referring to on Reddit.
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King Ruud is good to us
Thank you very much. The welcome for all us reddit refugees has been really warm and it's deeply appreciated.
Thank you for making this happen! Just signed up for a regular donation to help with costs π
Like many others, I came from Reddit and was initially hesitant to try it out, but I love this place so much! It really feels like the "worse" parts of Reddit have been skimmed off, and that definitely shows with how nice people seem here! Thank you so much!
Truth is for me as someone who used Reddit for about the last 16 years, it very much feels like the early days of Reddit again.
Which is a very good thing, because that's what I originally signed up for compared to a metric fuckton of karma farming spam bots.
I just hope it gains enough traction to be sustainable in the long run, especially considering that it's relying on donations for funding, I believe?
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how nice people seem here
yes! I love the culture of this place so far
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Thanks for accommodating us!
I really appreciate what you're doing, but I'm worried how this instance will continue scaling. What happens when it gets to 1 million users? 10 million? We can scale vertically only somewhat, but horizontal scaling seems to be limited to "just join a new instance 4head" and that just...doesn't have a good experience.
Ya what are the limitations with scaling horizontally? Scaling up is a stop gap.
Ruud, thank you for your investment here though.
This server can easily host 1M users.
Most stress on the server comes from all the signups and newcomers posting a lot. After a while that becomes less. On Mastodon, the first days in November I had over 100k active users. Now I have 165k accounts but around 32k active.
And I'm sure the Lemmy devs will also improve the performance of the site. They never really had to, a few days ago the total number of Lemmy users over all instances was 7k.
Is data actually replicated among the different servers? Is (data from other servers) just cached temporarily or is it permanently stored on local DBs?
I checked lemmy docs but I couldn't find a clear answer.
I was wondering what kind of strain the immense influx of people could put on network and DBs other than just servers, specifically in case of the number of servers raising a lot, not just users on a single server.
Ruud is rad!!
as one of the new people here, awesome!
Performance is looking awesome, lemmy.world is responding very fast to community subscription requests and search is also very fast. My experience when using other instances was that search didn't work at all, hindering community discovery.
Thanks!
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Just donated $10! Appreciate all the work you all are doing to keep up with the growth.
Hello, i still doesn't quite grasp about the concept of federation and about how fediverse works.
But does it means that one instance can only run from one server?
Say lemmy.world running on Server A lemmy.ml running on Server B
User can register on whichever they want and can see the post from server A and Server B
But when Server A reach maximum capacity, can Server A scale up or distribute the load to multiple instances?
How can we solve the issue of computing power when more and more users migrate to using this services
Thank you π
Sorry if its a dumb question, but the whole Federation concept is still new to me. I created multiple account to log in to beehaw, mastodon, lemmy.world, lemmy.ml at first because i dont know that with one user, i can see other communities from another instances
Optimal would be if users would spread over many servers, instead of all coming to Lemmy.world. But most users don't fully understand the Federation concept so they think they need to register here so they can see local content?
I think the current server can handle a lot of users. It's just the software that isn't ready for it.. but that will improve. If ever this server gets too small, next step would be to scale using Kubernetes, but also that requires the software to be better prepared for that.
Perhaps having the lemmy main site suggest servers with less load in a dynamic way would help with this. Instance xyz is now recommended on the main page due to having less users. The main problem I see with that is that there are different "themed" and what is suggested may not match up with the user's preferences and tastes.
Thanks for setting up and managing the instances.
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Hello, after reading all the comments, I realized that I share the same questions (sort of) with the others.
Thank you for replying and clarify things
Cheers Ruud. And thank you π
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I'm trying to figure out why I even saw this post! I've never been to lemmy.world - I'm logged in to (and currently browsing) sh.itjust.works. Not sure why it's showing me this post.
Gonna take a while to wrap my redditor brain around this stuff!
That's what we mean when we talk about federation!
All the instances are interconnected (unless they block each other). You can post, vote, comment, and even become a moderator of a community on any other instance.
In many ways, it's all one big site. In many ways it's also not, but to the end user who just wants to browse around, it's not as important as people make it out to be.
There's some rough edges around community discovery, cross-instance linking, etc. But the devs are working hard on fixing those issues.
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Seems like you've suddenly got a weight to bare. You're clearly lifting it. π
How to contribute? Do you have Patreon?
Incredible. Thank you for your efforts on this!
For less tech-savvy newbies (like me), in case there is some confusion affecting your urge to engage/donate... My friend gave me a great explanation:
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Lemmy the platform is planet Earth
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βInstancesβ like lemmy.world, lemmy.ml, beehaw.org, etc. are like the different countries on Earth
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When someone signs up, the user picks one instance to be a part of, like how an Earthling becomes a citizen of a country
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If you register at lemmy.world, that means your home instance/ βhome countryβ is lemmy.world, but you can βtravelβ to lemmy.ml, another instance / βcountryβ, to check out and subscribe to their community
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When you subscribe to a different instance thatβs not your home instance, you can still participate in their content, and other people will be able to see which instance / βcountryβ youβre from
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Each instance can have its own version of the same βsubredditβ, so you can have a c/Memes in your home instance that is different from a c/Memes in another instance. But you can subscribe to both separately
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c/[community name] is the naming convention used here I think like r/[subreddit name] on Reddit. If talking about a community in a different instance, it's c/[community name]@[instance name] so like c/memes@lemmy.ml
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Donations will help with the cost of running lemmy.world only and not lemmy.ml, beehaw.org, etc.
Someone please correct any of this if any of it is wrong, Iβll happily edit
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Thanks Ruud!
So, I just want to make sure I understand this as I am a new user from reddit. Instances are server based and cost money. Instances are Lemmy.World, Beebaw, Lemmy.Film, etc etc. These are all seperate hosted instances. Correct?
And donations would help pay for the server, ie lemmy.world?
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Is one donation method preferred over another? That is to say, is one cheaper than the other?
This is literally a Wikipedia moment for social media, thank you @Ruud
Umm I joined at 2k users now there are over 15k. Damn this is exploding.
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