Planning on running your own #Fediverse server? It’s important to keep certain expectations in mind.
I’m running Akkoma, which is one of the most resource-efficient microblog server software for the Fediverse.
With Akkoma, 1CPU and 512MB of RAM is enough to get started. This is good enough for a single user doing “normal” operation. And by “normal”, I mean has a couple hundred followers and posts 10x times a day.
2CPU and 2GB of RAM is good enough for a community of 20 users who are all doing normal operation. However, one power user can skew this if they have 1,000s of followers and post 50x a day. When I had 3,000 followers, this amount of resources was absolutely fine.
But if you want to run a server with 100 users, all doing normal operation, then you probably need 2CPU and 8GB of RAM. Personally, even though I only have three users on atomicpoet.org, this is what I’m running right now.
It’s not just because I have 13.5K followers and federating with most of the Fediverse, but also because at several points during the past week, several of my posts went viral across the Fediverse – which put tremendous stress on a server.
Put another way, even if you’re following less than 100 people and only sending out a post a few times a day, if one post gets liked and boosted 1,000 of times – this has happened to me – your server will suffer for it. With good management, your server will probably survive, but it will not be easy keeping up with demand.
Do I recommend running your own server? Absolutely, it is an incredibly rewarding experience and puts you in complete control of your social media life. Even so, it’s good to set reasonable expectations of what a Fediverse server can do.