Looks like KBin has an edge over Lemmy now in terms of monthly active users.

It’s obviously a pretty silly thing, and is not in any way indicative of which project is “better” or more “long-term viable” or anything — instances of both federate with one another, and with the rest of fedi, so it’s all one happy family.

That said, it’s notable. KBin is a relative newcomer to the “Reddit-like fedi instance” game, and also does not have the tankie baggage.

Anyway, the more, the merrier!

KBin: https://the-federation.info/platform/184

Lemmy: https://the-federation.info/platform/73

Discussion on fedi: https://mstdn.social/@rysiek/110527049024028986

  • sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
    3·
    2 years ago

    I can’t speak for everyone, but I personally do not want to work with PHP ever again. I’m sure it’s gotten better, but when I last used it (>15 years ago), the standard library was super inconsistent and performance was pretty terrible. It left a bad taste in my mouth, and I now prefer client-side rendering.

    But aside from my personal dislike for PHP, here is why I prefer client-side rendering:

    • easier to have a solid caching strategy - means faster initial page load on mobile/slow connections
    • performance issues are usually limited to database access
    • you get the API for free for third party apps
    • can separate frontend concerns from backend concerns, so it makes development a little easier to split into teams with different skill sets

    That said, for a federated system, it doesn’t really matter that much since people can just increase the number of instances to help share the load. I just personally am not interested in helping with kbin, but I would be totally on board with helping with Lemmy.

    • jonne@infosec.pubEnglish
      3·
      2 years ago

      Yeah, it shows you haven’t used php in a while. Most of the gripes people have with it have been fixed over the years, and every framework encourages you to build an API-first app these days.

    • sydneybrokeit@beehaw.orgEnglish
      1·
      2 years ago

      That said, for a federated system, it doesn’t really matter that much since people can just increase the number of instances to help share the load.

      This is only partially true. There is a finite number of people willing to run an instance, and increasing the costs associated with a given size of instance means that we need more of them, or that they may not find it worth the time to pay $X per month for hosting when it only fits so many people.

      Federation is a beautiful thing, but we have some economic issues we have to reckon with.