lemmy - Link to source

Wondering if running a single user Lemmy is an overkill

I am fairly new to Lemmy and was thinking of getting an account on one of the "big" servers to get the full experience, but then I figured I could do exactly the same thing as with my GoToSocial and other services: run my own instance.

I am wondering if this is an overkill or not. Any experience running your own small Lemmy instance? Are there better options that are compatible with Lemmy but lighter to run for this purpose?

#selfhosted
in reply to michael

piefed - Link to source

OpenStars

I mean you jest, hence upvoting, but I also find it funny that more people use PieFed now than are on lemmy.ml (edit: to explain, that is by far the most talked about instance across the entire Threadiverse). On PieFed.social alone there are >1k active users.

1 PieFed stats
2 Lemmy stats

Fediverse Observer checks all sites in the fediverse and gives you an easy way to find a home from a map or list or automatically.

Piefed Sites Status. Find a Piefed server to sign up for, find one close to you!
piefed.fediverse.observer
This entry was edited (Monday, January 5, 2026, 10:39 PM)
in reply to Erick

lemmy - Link to source

Björn

I run a single user instance and it's horribly slow. Mostly because I only have HDDs and not enough RAM to compensate. I hope Lemmy 1.0 will increase database performance.

Piefed is supposedly much more performant. But I'm shying away from migrating because I don't want to lose my post history and uploaded pictures.

in reply to Erick

mbin - Link to source

Auster

Directly compatible with Lemmy, there's Friendica (Facebook-like; also compatible with Twitter-like posts e.g. from Mastodon), Mbin (simplified/cleaner UI; also hybrid like Friendica), and PieFed (apparently more Reddit-like than Lemmy from what I read, in a technical sense).

Dunno which are better/worse to run, but I remember seeing hardware requirements on the docs of each of them.

Also it's not uncommon to see single user instances from my experience. But if you feel it's a waste of domain/resources, you could also create some dedicated community or something to give further use for it.

in reply to Auster

mbin - Link to source

Auster

Also on the images issue pointed by another user, maybe also see if Lemmy now has a solution for it, or if any of the alternatives do.

mbirth 🇬🇧

2026-01-05 14:07:22


I did it for a while but my system was constantly busy and there was this controversy about the image cache and possible CSAM which then prompted me to switch to using the flagship instance. Haven't tried any of the alternatives, though.

Lemmy's Image Problem (Updated 02-06-2024) - Lemmy

lemmy.ml
in reply to abeorch

mbin - Link to source

Auster

RSS's a big for me and had been considering originally using Mastodon + RSS Parrot. But though I don't like the UI of Friendica, its native tracker bot function sounds rather interesting. 👀

Thinking here, the site engine I'd pick for daily use would probably be Mbin. But as I hear it is a bit of a processing hog, running it and a Friendica instance on the same device would maybe be too much for the device, so maybe I should buy another Raspberry Pi or some other SBC for it.

in reply to Erick

lemmy - Link to source

Two9A

I'm hosting the Decronym bot on a single-user instance, and it's a real pain. The bot's been down for weeks, actually, because an upgrade failed with some obscure error around the database schema...

I've ended up just today, wiping the whole thing and starting over, losing all data and having to refederate the bot. So yeah, I wouldn't recommend.

[Acronyms to help the bot re-establish: LVM, HASS, k8s]

This entry was edited (Monday, January 5, 2026, 6:20 PM)
in reply to Erick

lemmy - Link to source

kokomo

Hi, single user lemmy instance here. I'd say it's been smooth sailing for now. I might consider moving to piefed like other folks here, but I'll keep it and see. Right now i can't even upgrade due to arm64 docker images are broken at the moment, but it's sufficient enough.

EDIT: Seems like it's fixed, yippee :D github.com/LemmyNet/lemmy/issu… kudos to mattlqx :)

Fix ARM release builds

They stopped working after upgrading to Rust 1.91. Relevant PRs: #6128 #6143 #6144
Nutomic (GitHub)
This entry was edited (Monday, January 5, 2026, 6:12 PM)
in reply to Erick

lemmy - Link to source

Decronym

Acronyms, initialisms, abbreviations, contractions, and other phrases which expand to something larger, that I've seen in this thread:

Fewer LettersMore Letters
HASSHome Assistant automation software
HTTPHypertext Transfer Protocol, the Web
HTTPSHTTP over SSL
LVM(Linux) Logical Volume Manager for filesystem mapping
NVMeNon-Volatile Memory Express interface for mass storage
SBCSingle-Board Computer
SSDSolid State Drive mass storage
SSLSecure Sockets Layer, for transparent encryption
k8sKubernetes container management package
nginxPopular HTTP server

8 acronyms in this thread; the most compressed thread commented on today has 8 acronyms.

[Thread #982 for this comm, first seen 5th Jan 2026, 18:25]
[FAQ] [Full list] [Contact] [Source code]

Imran Nazar ~ عمران نزر (@Two9A@hachyderm.io)

1.86K Posts, 283 Following, 198 Followers · Front-end #typescript developer, author of RFC 7168 (HTCPCP for teapots); occasional plumber, more than occasional #c64 #retrocomputing enthusiast, terrible at #piano.
Hachyderm.io
This entry was edited (Tuesday, January 6, 2026, 5:15 PM)
in reply to Erick

lemmy - Link to source

MuttMutt

It's something I've wanted to do for a while. Honestly I want to host a Lemmy instance and my own peertube instance.

Two things are stopping me. I don't understand certain points of how things interact in the software or how to set it up properly to self host and be comfortable in it's security. I barely understand docker and some other stuff. It sucks because I understood how to use DOS at an around 14 by reading the manual. I also don't have the funding to do so in a way that I would feel comfortable at this point. I don't fully trust co-mingling my home services with web services due to the security risks.

in reply to MuttMutt

piefed - Link to source

hendrik

Maybe try something like YunoHost. That's a web server Linux distribution. And it's supposed to take care of the set up and come with somewhat safe/secure defaults. You'd need some kind of server, though. Or run it in a VM to isolate it from your home services. They have PeerTube, Lemmy, PieFed installable with a few clicks. (There are other projects as well, Yunohost isn't the only option to help with the set up.)

But yes, some kind of isolation is probably nice with web services. Also from the home network, and from storage with personal data on it.

YunoHost: garden your own piece of the Internet!

YunoHost is a system that installs itself on a server and allows you to install and maintain - with very little technical knowledge - digital services (apps) that you control.
yunohost.org
This entry was edited (Tuesday, January 6, 2026, 12:06 AM)
in reply to Jade

piefed - Link to source

hendrik

Not sure if I get your point. Abstraction is a concept used by IT people to deal with complexity. You'll use Docker containers in order not to have 200 very specific problems and learn about the intricate details of all of them. Or use a turnkey solution because a working day has a finite amount of hours and you can just not care and have somebody else set the XY value of Postgres to 128 because that's somehow needed for software M on python x.xx... Of course you're then not going to learn about these things. It is not "bad", though, in itself to abstract these issues away from you. Same for the other things I mentioned, networking, virtualization. Abstraction there allows to swap out complex things, do things once and in a clean way because it's easy to miss things without abstraction and you always need to pay attention to a bazillion of specifics. Also helps with backups, deal with issues because things should break within confined layers, punch above one's weight, security, do something once and roll it out several times...

I think what you want to avoid is poorly designed or written software. Or poorly done setups. Or not learn about important things. Abstraction is generally something you want, especially with complex things.

This entry was edited (Tuesday, January 6, 2026, 10:31 AM)
in reply to hendrik

piefed - Link to source

Erick

YuNoHost is a great alternative, but if you really want to learn, I would instead recommend really spending some time learning Docker; you don't have to understand how to build your own images (although that is also very useful), but mostly what is going on at a high level, and then switch to Docker Compose. These days it is extremely easy to run very complex architectures with a single compose file.

You also don't need to make it public for your tests, you can always start with local ip addresses and you own computer, or if you have a small computer that can run headless, then you can setup your experiments in there.

in reply to Erick

lemmy - Link to source

squaresinger

Lemmy fetches everything that has ever been posted in any community that any user on that instance is subscribed to and keeps it indefinitely.

Since most activity happens in big communities that most people are subscribed to, most instances keep full, persistent copies of most things that were ever posted to lemmy.

That's why Lemmy scales so badly. If Lemmy was the size of Reddit, every instance would have to have storage capacity in the same order of magnitude as all of Reddit itself.

The problem only gets worse with time, since all that has been posted still remains.

The total replication also means that the copies need to be moderated by every instance individually, since every instance stores a copy of everything. So if e.g. someone posts illegal content on another instance and your instance stores a replica, you are just as legally liable for that illegal content as the original instance. Thus you have to moderate everything that runs over your instance.

Moderation effort is thus also replicated across all instances.

That bad scaling in storage and moderation is btw the reason why e.g. lemm.ee shut down. It was just too much cost and work to keep the instance running.

in reply to Erick

lemmy - Link to source

Psythik

I always wanted to do this too so I could have whatever I want after the at symbol in my username, but gave up after I couldn't figure out what "Docker" was because the last time I tried to run a website was sometime around 2001. A lot has changed since then.

Hell, just trying to keep my website secured with HTTPS alone is a major pain in the ass, because the certificate keeps expiring every few months and I can't figure out how to get it to stay activated long term. And don't even get me started on this "CNAME/@/AAA" business. It barely makes sense to my old ass! Whatever happened to just pointing your nameservers to your domain and being done with it?

⇧