7 ms·

All costs are detailed here: https://hub.fosstodon.org/about/#current-funding https://hub.fosstodon.org/about/#current-funding Yes it could be done cheaper, if

All costs are detailed here: https://hub.fosstodon.org/about/#current-funding https://hub.fosstodon.org/about/#current-funding Yes it could be done cheaper, if they did more work themselves. The masto.host service they're using is basically Mastodon as a service - aka they're paying someone to host (and manage) a Mastodon instance. All in all fair value for the money IMO.

datalopers 4y ago
> All in all fair value Unless I'm missing something huge, how is $1900/mo for 96GB of database and 700GB of disk storage remotely a fair value? AWS on-demand prices are significantly more affordable than that. And this is all to support a grand total of 50,000 users? What in the world? Is Mastodon just the most inefficiently written software ever or something?
- charcircuit 4y ago
  >Mastodon just the most inefficiently written software ever or something? Yes, it's notoriously bad.
- michaelanckaert 4y ago
  Automated backups, monitoring, a person "on call) to manage your instance and handle any issues? The Fosstodon admins run the moderation side, but masto.host (their service provider) is paid to keep the lights on.
  - datalopers 4y ago
    No, I'm sorry, these are not reasonable costs. Is there a reason why the mastodon community has utterly no clue what sort of performance/cost should support an utterly basic social media platform?
    - Un1corn 4y ago
      You are always welcome to use the opportunity and start a competing service in a fraction of the cost. Mastodon is indeed inefficient but you also pay a lot for peace of mind.
      - deleted 4y ago
        [deleted]
      - Kye 4y ago
        More to the point: the masto.host guy has been there working on making starting an instance accessible from early on. People don't seem to mind paying a little premium to support someone who's done a lot of work to jumpstart the fediverse. Starting a competing service might be easy from a technical aspect, but reputation counts for a lot here.
    - cdmckay 4y ago
      Instead of condescending to them, why not try to help the project be more efficient with resources? It is an open source project after all.
  - rendleflag 4y ago
    It's easy to say "buy a box and connect it to the internet", but that's consumer grade equipment. If my computer goes down, it only affects me. When an instance goes down, it can affect thousands of people. I'm not saying they couldn't find a less expensive solution with AWS or Azure, but they need a solution now. They don't have the time to learn a new solution, design the system, and then implement a new backend while people are swarming to their instance. Migrating to another solution (even the above "box") means significant downtime for 50,000 people.
- nells 4y ago
  Yes? It’s written in RoR.
  - datalopers 4y ago
    Is the ActivityPub spec just as bad, or would it be performant if written in a proper language?
    - tpm 4y ago
      There are other clients, like gotosocial written in Go, so a comparison is possible, but not sure if someone has already done that.
    - goneri 4y ago
      Pleroma is an Mastodon clone written in Elixir https://git.pleroma.social/pleroma/pleroma https://git.pleroma.social/pleroma/pleroma
- perihelions 4y ago
  $TWTR's all-inclusive expenses were 25x higher than this. $5.6B/year = $470M/month, in support of 260M daily active users. $1.80/user-month, as compared vs. $0.07/user-month on here (I'm only counting the 30k "active"). I feel like it's a bargain social media, both in feature-set and cost. (I don't understand the server cost breakdown either, and I don't pretend do. Just doing an empirical comparison).
  - charcircuit 4y ago
    The incentives of optimizing for future revenue are different than those when you are optimizing for minimizing expenses. These values are not very comparable.
    - deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
    - lostlogin 4y ago
      Which of those two is the one optimising for future revenue? Not trying to be a smart arse - it’s just that the obvious pick (Twitter) has been aiming for revenue from the beginning and haven’t really delivered.
      - charcircuit 4y ago
        Twitter. >has been aiming for revenue from the beginning and haven’t really delivered. In 2021 twitter had 5.08 billion dollars of revenue. Their ad revenue divided by DAU was about $20. No mastodon instance is close to getting $20 per active user per year.
        lostlogin 4y ago
        I’ve made the most basic of errors. I was thinking I was discussing profit.
    - TaylorAlexander 4y ago
      I find the comparison very interesting, in the broader debate of "how can not for profit services with no ads compete with giant for profit advertising based serices". I have really appreciated the analysis in this thread.
- hutrdvnj 4y ago
  The backend is written in Ruby on Rails not something like Rust, this explains why it has such beefy hardware requirements for 50k users.
weinzierl 4y ago
The masto.host "Mastodon as a service" is a one-man show run superbly by Hugo Gameiro. This and comparing it with other Mastodon hosters: absolutely fair value for the money.
capableweb 4y ago
> All costs are detailed here: https://hub.fosstodon.org/about/#current-funding https://hub.fosstodon.org/about/#current-funding It doesn't actually list where and how the service itself is hosted, it just says "Fosstodon hosting" and the amount. I'm looking to understand what hardware is being used and where it's hosted.
- Kye 4y ago
  https://masto.host/infrastructure/ https://masto.host/infrastructure/ >> "The data centers used for Masto.host are from OVH and are located in France." So probably whatever OVH offers.
  - capableweb 4y ago
    > So probably whatever OVH offers. That'd be more helpful if it narrowed it down a bit more. OVH offers ranges from 8 USD/month for a virtual CPU core in public cloud to like 1500 USD/month dedicated instances with 24 dedicated cores.

datalopers 4y ago

> All in all fair value Unless I'm missing something huge, how is $1900/mo for 96GB of database and 700GB of disk storage remotely a fair value? AWS on-demand prices are significantly more affordable than that. And this is all to support a grand total of 50,000 users? What in the world? Is Mastodon just the most inefficiently written software ever or something?

charcircuit 4y ago
>Mastodon just the most inefficiently written software ever or something? Yes, it's notoriously bad.
michaelanckaert 4y ago
Automated backups, monitoring, a person "on call) to manage your instance and handle any issues? The Fosstodon admins run the moderation side, but masto.host (their service provider) is paid to keep the lights on.
- datalopers 4y ago
  No, I'm sorry, these are not reasonable costs. Is there a reason why the mastodon community has utterly no clue what sort of performance/cost should support an utterly basic social media platform?
  - Un1corn 4y ago
    You are always welcome to use the opportunity and start a competing service in a fraction of the cost. Mastodon is indeed inefficient but you also pay a lot for peace of mind.
    - deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
    - Kye 4y ago
      More to the point: the masto.host guy has been there working on making starting an instance accessible from early on. People don't seem to mind paying a little premium to support someone who's done a lot of work to jumpstart the fediverse. Starting a competing service might be easy from a technical aspect, but reputation counts for a lot here.
  - cdmckay 4y ago
    Instead of condescending to them, why not try to help the project be more efficient with resources? It is an open source project after all.
- rendleflag 4y ago
  It's easy to say "buy a box and connect it to the internet", but that's consumer grade equipment. If my computer goes down, it only affects me. When an instance goes down, it can affect thousands of people. I'm not saying they couldn't find a less expensive solution with AWS or Azure, but they need a solution now. They don't have the time to learn a new solution, design the system, and then implement a new backend while people are swarming to their instance. Migrating to another solution (even the above "box") means significant downtime for 50,000 people.
nells 4y ago
Yes? It’s written in RoR.
- datalopers 4y ago
  Is the ActivityPub spec just as bad, or would it be performant if written in a proper language?
  - tpm 4y ago
    There are other clients, like gotosocial written in Go, so a comparison is possible, but not sure if someone has already done that.
  - goneri 4y ago
    Pleroma is an Mastodon clone written in Elixir https://git.pleroma.social/pleroma/pleroma https://git.pleroma.social/pleroma/pleroma
perihelions 4y ago
$TWTR's all-inclusive expenses were 25x higher than this. $5.6B/year = $470M/month, in support of 260M daily active users. $1.80/user-month, as compared vs. $0.07/user-month on here (I'm only counting the 30k "active"). I feel like it's a bargain social media, both in feature-set and cost. (I don't understand the server cost breakdown either, and I don't pretend do. Just doing an empirical comparison).
- charcircuit 4y ago
  The incentives of optimizing for future revenue are different than those when you are optimizing for minimizing expenses. These values are not very comparable.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  - lostlogin 4y ago
    Which of those two is the one optimising for future revenue? Not trying to be a smart arse - it’s just that the obvious pick (Twitter) has been aiming for revenue from the beginning and haven’t really delivered.
    - charcircuit 4y ago
      Twitter. >has been aiming for revenue from the beginning and haven’t really delivered. In 2021 twitter had 5.08 billion dollars of revenue. Their ad revenue divided by DAU was about $20. No mastodon instance is close to getting $20 per active user per year.
      - lostlogin 4y ago
        I’ve made the most basic of errors. I was thinking I was discussing profit.
  - TaylorAlexander 4y ago
    I find the comparison very interesting, in the broader debate of "how can not for profit services with no ads compete with giant for profit advertising based serices". I have really appreciated the analysis in this thread.
hutrdvnj 4y ago
The backend is written in Ruby on Rails not something like Rust, this explains why it has such beefy hardware requirements for 50k users.

weinzierl 4y ago

The masto.host "Mastodon as a service" is a one-man show run superbly by Hugo Gameiro. This and comparing it with other Mastodon hosters: absolutely fair value for the money.

capableweb 4y ago

> All costs are detailed here: https://hub.fosstodon.org/about/#current-funding https://hub.fosstodon.org/about/#current-funding It doesn't actually list where and how the service itself is hosted, it just says "Fosstodon hosting" and the amount. I'm looking to understand what hardware is being used and where it's hosted.

Kye 4y ago
https://masto.host/infrastructure/ https://masto.host/infrastructure/ >> "The data centers used for Masto.host are from OVH and are located in France." So probably whatever OVH offers.
- capableweb 4y ago
  > So probably whatever OVH offers. That'd be more helpful if it narrowed it down a bit more. OVH offers ranges from 8 USD/month for a virtual CPU core in public cloud to like 1500 USD/month dedicated instances with 24 dedicated cores.