title: Picking a Mastodon server 🫠
date: 2023-07-11 17:29:49
slug: picking-a-mastodon-server
status: published
display_format: entry
link: https://jj.isgeek.net/2023/07/picking-a-mastodon-server/
categories: Fediverse
categories: fomo
syndication: https://twitter.com/jjdelc/status/1678818896818630660


A benefit of #Fediverse is that when a node goes down, the rest doesn't. But that's fine when it's someone else's node, or when it's temporary downtime.

The fact that centralized silos have the pressure to keep everyone up gives me this strange comfort that "It's too big to fail", whereas the instance I pick has to be well financed and maintained with reasonable costs so it doesn't shut down 3 years down the road. #fomo

Now, it requires to do some research on the _about_ page for each server, read their different moderating rules, construct a spreadsheet and make a mindful assessment.

"But Mastodon allows instance migration!". Yes, download a bunch of CSVs, and re-upload each of the activity files manually. But then, I suppose I should treat it like another SILO.

Don't even mention running my own fediverse instance, keeping updates, workers, deploys, security, way too much work.