Is there any benefit to host my own instance?

  • jon@lemmy.tf
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    1 year ago

    From what I’ve seen and read, server to server traffic is less taxing on instances than client to server. So even if your instance is JUST you, it would be your instance talking to everything else so it would have some net benefit on the federation. But it would take a lot of users self-hosting solo instances for this to help in any noticeable way, I’d think.

    There is certainly no downside to running a solo instance, if you’re even slightly interested I would say go for it!

    • Album@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      It’s only less taxing if it’s multiple ppl on an instance.

      If every solo user spun up an instance just for themselves there wouldn’t be a benefit over all those users just signing up directly to an existing instance.

      Eg 5 users on instance b trying to access instance a Is better then 5 users each with their own instance trying to access instance a.

      • thatcasualgamingguy@lemmy.nerdcore.social
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        1 year ago

        Wouldn’t it still be a bit less taxing even with only one user? If I’m not mistaken then your instance only initially requests a community/post/comment from another instance when you specifically search for it. After that your server gets updates through activities pushed by the other instance. So if you refresh a post multiple times those requests only go to your instance. It somewhat acts like a cache, while the other instance can push activities at it’s own pace instead of being hammered with requests. Of course multiple users per instance would still be better.

        • festus@lemmy.ca
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          1 year ago

          It acts like a cache, yes, but now the other instance has to send a push to keep every user’s instance updated, whereas if there were only a few instances with lots of users only a few instances needed to get updated.

      • Saik0@lemmy.saik0.com
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        1 year ago

        If every solo user spun up an instance just for themselves there wouldn’t be a benefit over all those users just signing up directly to an existing instance.

        Not quite true… There’s a ton of sql queries that go on to show you the correct content for your user. Showing the correct subscriptions, applying the correct “bans” etc… Further sessions management of the user logging in itself… Direct messages, inbox management… etc…

        Just the raw content being sent to sync is just minimal text data that’s effectively broadcasted. The stress of that is virtually nothing in comparison.

        The break even is that a ton of data might sync that you never look at… but it’s a broadcast of sorts. So that’s a bit of a non issue.