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fediverse platform for a schools community network

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!!

26 comments

  • 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.

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

    • I wonder if pixelfed is resource hungry? As mastodon?

      • 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.

  • It depends. what purpose should this platform serve? What functions/features are you looking for? If all you're looking for is a light(er)-weight microblog fedi platform, maybe gotosocial.

    Perhaps a schools network may benefit from an ActivityPub platform that not only allows social posting, but also includes features like cloud storage, and integrated groups (public, private, moderated) among other relevant features. I suggest taking a peek at streams.

    • Will check out streams. Is it lightweight? I wonder if gotosocial is a good choice for a multiple account instance, as AFAIK it is meant for single user ones

      • I previously ran a small streams instance on an older 32-bit laptop at home for a couple people. It ran fine. It can also run on shared web-hosting platforms. So I'd certainly say it's lightweight. Though, of course, it all depends on how much usage it will get (number of people, how active they are, how many contacts on other instances, etc). It can use either MySQL or PostgreSQL for db.

        As for GoToSocial, you're right, looks like it's intended for no more than a small number of people.

        So how many folks are you intending on hosting at this instance?

26 comments