Choosing a Fediverse Instance

TL;DR: How do you find a good Mastodon Instance? Check fedi.garden.

My good friend Mike, who has an amazing blog, started posting more on the fediverse recently. The problem is he, like many people, created an account on the "official instance", mastodon.social. And mastodon.social sucks.

A quick recap: the fediverse is a "federated social media network" -- this means that several websites, ran by different people in different parts of the world, connect to each other, and let their users exchange posts between themselves. Mastodon is the most common software used in the fediverse, but there are others, such as Glitch, Misskey, Sharkey... and Mastodon.social is the website run by the developers of mastodon, but, again, there are others.

To many people this diversity of servers is the big dealbreaker for joining the fediverse ("What server do I even join?"). I can see that argument, but for me this multitude of little servers is actually one of the greatest charms of the fediverse. I greatly enjoy the idea of being part of a small community ran by some rando with strong opinions about computers and star trek jokes, than being another user in a website run by some corporation that does not care if you live or die. The personal is super important to me.

Anyway, the point is: you need to choose a server when you join the fediverse. Most people join mastodon.social, because it is the "official" instance. Unfortunately mastodon social is not a very good instance. First, with over 50.000 people, it is just too large. There is no sense of community, you're just a face in the crowd. More importantly, though, it is a poorly moderated instance. That is kinda related to the fact that it is too large -- with that many people it is much harder to keep an eye on everything going on -- although sometimes it seems that good moderation is just not a priority over there. Finally, registrations are open, which means many cases of spammers, bots and scammers coming out of mastodon.social.

Because of all of that, many smaller instances "limit" mastodon social (and other mega-instances) to protect their users from bad behavior. In principle, you won't see posts from limited instances, unless you follow a user from that instance, or someone you follow boosts a post from there.

So, mastodon.social is out. How do you choose a good instance then?

For me, the bare minimum you want from an instance is:

• It is stable (it will still be around in a year or two)
• It has good, intentional moderation (it keeps the nazis out)

Ideally, you'd find a instance with a community you feel a part of - based on the city you live, the identity you share, or the hobbies you enjoy. But that is extra -- any well moderated, stable instance should give you a good time!

In my opinion, the best way to find a good instance is to get a recommendation from a friend. Look at the people that you are mutuals with, and ask them about their instances! However "have someone recommend a good instance to you" causes a chicken-and-egg problem, doesn't it? In that case, a list of recommended instances is useful.

I asked around and got many suggestions. The best one was fedi.garden. This nice site has not only a hand-curated list of instance, it has many other nice information about using the fediverse. If you have a friend ask you about which instance to join, consider poiting them to this website!