Whatever ones you like. Newcomers don't know how each instance behaves until they've experienced it.
this post was submitted on 12 Feb 2026
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Ask Lemmy
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Assuming we're talking about instances we'd recommend to new Fediverse users, I'd recommend against lemmy.world. Not because there's anything wrong with the instance, but simply because it's the largest, by a fairly large margin. A central principal of the fediverse is decentralization, and to that end, it's healthier to spread the users across many instances than to have folks concentrated too heavily on any one.
I figured joining the biggest one would be the most exciting and active. I believe federation happens when a user on one instance follows another, so joining a smaller one might mean you miss some content. I could be wrong though.
You're only missing content if your instance defederates from another and vice versa or if you block instances yourself.
It might be a bit easier to find new communities at first by scrolling through the local feed on a bigger community, but you can also do this without making an account there.
I think stability and speed of an instance are better selection criteria since they effect your experience much more. Piefed instances tend to offer a smooth and fast experience. E.g. piefed.social, piefed.zip, and the others mentioned in one of the other comments.
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Problem with lemmy.world is that because it's got so open registration, some instances block it entirely. Though it's a good place to start and know what to expect. Because Lemmy is pretty slow, I personally prefer to browse All - New and just block all Communities (and instances) that I don't want to see. I subscribe too of course for those times I just want to see the content I'm actually interested in but for casual browsing, browse by all.
There are tools nowadays that share communities around to smaller instances through bot accounts that auto subscribe.
It also makes it easier when you create a community, now it will automatically show up on most instances.
It basically works like that on Mastodon, but on Lemmy, etc. you will see most of the content of all federated instances.
It's common for new users to overthink the choice of instance - it doesn't make a huge difference for most users and you can always switch if you find a better fit in the future.
You can pick one that is local to your country/region, or if you have a special interest like art or environmental activism, you may be able to find one that specializes in that. Otherwise choose any instance that is stable.
Just FYI everyone, this spike is sort of a glitch and its quite obvious just from looking at how steep the curve is. It all comes from nodebb which is a forum software and i guess they switched on federation on 11.01.2026 which gave us this magical bump.
They are real users probably, but what i mean is that this wasnt a rush of new users, but just old (mostly inactive) users that were never considered part of the fediverse until now.
Still increases footprint/grants more credibility to the Fediverse, which I think is a good thing. It just won't really impact the daily experience here
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Recommend:
Avoid:
- Lemmy.ml (Tankie fascist koolaid. Unless you enjoy being gaslit and manipulated similar to Trump and his fascist thugs, this should be avoided like the bubonic plague)
- Lemmy.world (sorry guys but seriously please reconsider accepting literally everyone for users; it's crazy how much spam and nonsense is coming from your instance)
hexbear, lemmygrad as well. hexbear make themselves sound"cute" to hopefully trick people into engaging in thier instance, when in fact they are tankies.
Fyi, you might to clarify that new users should avoid hexbear and lemmygrad.
If someone only skims through the comments, yours can read as an endorsement, especially since the user you replied to had endorsements at the top of their comment
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I joined this one because the main one was defederating a whole bunch of pirate ones and that makes no goddamn sense. thanks 👍
mods will be like hey let's make it so our users can't access stuff. that makes sense. I bet that's what they want. they want to not have access to things. they think it's good
smart and federal
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As far as I understand, lemmy instances are sort of a community with communities inside. It seems that each isntance has their own like minded userbase. .world has basich mix of everyone due to popularity, .ml holds strong beliefs politically, blahaj.zone is more progressive in gender identity, piefed.social is more mainstream decentralized instance. And of course there are more I didn't mention.
I am on dbzer0 because I am into selfhosting and sailing the seas. It fits me well. Tied to one instance doesn't stop me from engaging on other instances except the ones I blacklisted.
Check the instances and their descriptions and find something that fits you.
db0 is also pro-GenAI, which seems unfortunate to me.
You can do what I do and just block the genAI art comms.
No harm, no foul, I just am not interested in the content.
While I can't say for certain, I would strongly suspect that a lot of the people in those comms are self hosting their LLMs/Image generators, if that makes you feel any better.
But uh, there are a variety of nuanced stances on LLMs and such, amongst the other m@teys I've talked with.
Its... not like we're all super duper no holds barred put AI in everything advocates.
A lot of us are... quite a lot closer to 'Butlerian Jihad NOW', lol.
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!main@sh.itjust.works they are very new-user friendly, diaspora: idfk its dead, mastodon: official instance, peertube: peertube.wtf with official app to do federation stuff
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Personally I’d really like to see more servers physically located in privacy and free-speech friendly places like Switzerland and Iceland (for example). I’m not sure why you’d want to have your social media hosted anywhere else.
Even for things we're excited about, truncating the y-axis is never okay 😕
Blahaj.zone we're chill AF here
I don't like that you can't downvote, though.
Exactly. I look at downvotes on articles as a kind of fact curator. If an article has 50/50, you know it’s gotta be wrong.
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I think the best thing is to choose one and hang around and if you like where you land then go forward but once you learn how to look them over and what makes them different then evaluate and decide on one and make a new account that becomes your main.
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https://lemmy.sdf.org/ has some pretty unique content, even from the normal fediverse. I like the users there. See !funhole@lemmy.sdf.org and !unix_surrealism@lemmy.sdf.org
When its up peertube.wtf is great for discovering peertube videos. I use it to find things to post on !peertube@lemmy.world
I like to spend my time on piefed. Its my favorite "threadiverse" software atm. I spent snd contributed code to lemmy for about a year but jumped over to piefed. Its fun and fedi interop was better at the time.
For everything else fediverse.party for fun software and instances!
I'd like to plug the fediverse servers that I'm hosting for the traveller / digital nomad niche over at keyboard vagabond
https://piefed.keyboardvagabond.com/
https://mastodon.keyboardvagabond.com/
I live in the PNW. I picked an instance in the PNW. Sometimes I see local news, and often I read comments from people within a few hour drive. It's nice to have a small, local community here, while still having access to the rest of the world together. So I guess recommend picking the largest instance in your region if you don't have any other preferences.
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For someone entirely new to this, please ELI5 why it matters?
Entirely at random I signed up at feddit.uk
Does it mean I'm walled off from specific content? Am I in a dead part of the fediverse? And how do I change if I am.
Okay, so it matters for a few reasons.
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Instances have different rules. So you can banned by your own instances local admins for things you might not get banned for on other instances.
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If you wanted to make your own community, you'd automatically be hosting it on feddit.uk, so that matters to a degree when it comes to the local culture there.
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Instances have their own blocklists. So your instance might be blocking (defederating) another instance that has a lot of users. Or it might just as likely be blocked by another instance. This isn't the case for feddit.uk, which maintains wide federation.
Feddit.uk specifically is a UK based lemmy. If you look up the local communities, you can see that is the geographical/cultural focus.
It doesn't. Pick whatever instance and if another catches your eye make an account there as well. You don't have to limit yourself to one account on one instance. I started on feddit.de, then lemm.ee now hexbear and use this account to see some posts I wouldn't from hexbear since they have more of a safe space mentality than this instance
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My own! I feel like I run it pretty well, I certainly trust myself with my data than others. But otherwise, id probably recommend lemmy.zip or piefed.social
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One that is not blocked by a lot of other instances....
Why are there so many people coming here allegedly from this chart starting with this year
For me at least, reddits ban bot has gotten way too sensitive and the reviewers don't actually read the appeal. I got a permaban for "threatening violence" just saying the word "kill" in context of a cat hunting birds, tried to appeal and immediately got a notification that the ban won't be reversed, because they obviously didn't read the comment that triggered the ban.
So now I'm here
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