@OpinionatedGeek @d3z There are dedicated Mastodon hosting providers that might be a better compromise between home server and running a VPS like I'm doing. I tried them out about 4 years ago, but the cost ramped up very quickly for more than a couple of users, but I think it's probably more cost-effective now.

@mo @d3z Thanks for the info! I suppose I think a hosting provider is cheating - it may be the way to do it properly, but I think I'd get a better handle on it all if I put an instance together myself first. (Like email - I've run an IMAP+SMTP server in the past and learned a lot, but I don't want to do that again!)

@OpinionatedGeek @d3z I've done the same with IMAP+SMTP. It really helps to gain an understanding, but it really doesn't do much in the long term.

I kinda cheated cause I'm using the Docker containers. I can't be bothered installing and maintaining all the software from source though.

@mo @d3z Oh I fully intend to cheat with containers too! I do like the way I don't have to worry about build environments and dependencies with them, and that they make (some) network+filesystem requirements explicit. k3s on a Pi has been surprisingly good too, when Docker on Pi started annoying me.