So uh, apparently $288/year is not enough to run a Mastodon service for ~3 users, and this is a known issue (masto.host/mastodon-content-retention-se…) with no solution (github.com/mastodon/mastodon/discussions…!
Mar 20, 2026 at 4:09 PM
Mastodon is for the people
How we're thinking about supporting the communities that rely on Mastodon every day.
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Exit to Community: A Community Primer
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Mastodon instance mstdn.plus with over 4K users suddenly broke
Does it matter which Mastodon instance you choose? I've seen many people claim that it doesn't matter, and moreover that you can easily switch instances. I learned the hard way that this claim is unwarranted, a disservice to new Mastodon users. Your choice of instance is important, indeed crucial. Until yesterday I was on mstdn.plus, a Mastodon instance with well over 4000 active users according to its server stats. Yesterday morning I woke to a "frozen" timeline. At some point my home timeline stopped showing new posts. I stopped receiving new notifications too. My desolate experience was the same on the web site and in several third-party Mastodon client apps that I have installed on various devices. It turned out that my own experience was far from unique: looking at the federated timeline of mstdn.plus, at a certain point all posts from other Mastodon instances stopped, leaving only posts from local users. The last post from another instance was at 07:45 UTC on January 30, 2023. In the local mstdn.plus posts that appeared afterward, I saw a number of users complaining about frozen home timelines and missing notifications. (It was difficult to have conversations with them, because we weren't getting notifications for each other's replies.) Clearly, the entire instance was now severely dysfunctional.
How Does Mastodon Work? - Kev Quirk
I’ve spoken about Mastodon numerous times on this blog. It is the social media platform I use more than any other, but for a new user it can be confusing because it doesn’t work like other social media sites.
Enable Mastodon Apps Plugin — WordPress.com
Despite Mastodon implying that you would use this plugin for engaging on Mastodon (when you have enabled it for that, see below), the plugin is useful when installed on a plain WordPress.
Are there any other guides to Mastodon and the Fediverse?
An unofficial guide to using Mastodon and the Fediverse
Expectations and preferences around community contributions/interactions · mastodon mastodon · Discussion #36552
There is a long-running pattern of conversations on issues/PRs around some features getting quite heated and sometimes turning into personal insults, venting frustrations, borderline conspiracy acc...
Mastodon - Decentralized social media
Learn more about Mastodon, the radically different, free and open-source decentralized social media platform.
Mastotags - Hashtag Finder for Mastodon
Fosstodon
Fosstodon is an invite only Mastodon instance that is open to those who are interested in technology; particularly free & open source software. If you wish to join, contact us for an invite.
Tried building on Mastodon, wasn't financially viable. There's extremely little will to pay people for work in the fediverse, and Mastodon couldn't even give credit to contributors to help them raise their own profile. The only Fediverse orgs that have paid me are IFTAS and Nivenly.
Pedro Vezza
Why did you decide to bet on atproto over Mastodon or similar?
So uh, apparently $288/year is not enough to run a Mastodon service for ~3 users, and this is a known issue (masto.host/mastodon-content-retention-se…) with no solution (github.com/mastodon/mastodon/discussions…!
