James Ferguson May 16

Thank you to everyone who has donated over the years to help me cover the costs of genomic.social. The community that has been built here is still going strong thanks to all of you.

Currently, it costs ~$274USD/month for the hosting. Donations have covered around 1/3rd of this cost, and I have been covering the rest which unfortunately can't continue. I am currently ~$2,200USD (~3,076AUD) in the red.

Options I am considering below ->

Show threadJames Ferguson May 16

I have no strong preference between these options:

1. increased donations
2. wind down/close the instance
3. transfer ownership to someone else/a community
4. find a cheaper hosting option than masto.host

I am not quite sure what to do at this point, so I welcome feedback and ideas.

Show threadMoreno Colaiacovo 🌍May 16
@Psy_Fer_ I don't know the hardware details of your instance, but have you considered renting a VPS and an object storage? I use Contabo for my tiny instance, but other providers exist. You could check one of their offers and see how much would it cost to replicate what you have now with masto.host
Show threadJames Ferguson May 16
@emmecola my only concern is the increase in maintenance work I would then need to do. Also this instance is a bit above small now, with a few hundred active users. So while definitely an option, it would need to be at least 1/3rd the cost of what I'm paying now.
Show threadMoreno Colaiacovo 🌍May 16

@Psy_Fer_ I think it's worth to check the VPS offerings, because I spend roughly 10€/month for 6 CPU cores, 12 GB RAM, 400 GB local disk + 250 GB remote storage. I have ~5 active users, so you clearly need more resources, but I suspect you might spend ~50€/month.

The maintenance is not a big deal for me. After the initial set up, I simply run a system update and a docker compose pull every now and then 🙂

If you are interested, I followed these steps (suggested by @giorgiogilestro ): https://github.com/emmecola/mastodon-sayansi

GitHub - emmecola/mastodon-sayansi: MIRROR OF https://codeberg.org/emmecola/mastodon-sayansi - How to set up a Mastodon instance from scratch

MIRROR OF https://codeberg.org/emmecola/mastodon-sayansi - How to set up a Mastodon instance from scratch - emmecola/mastodon-sayansi

GitHub
Show threadNabil-Fareed AlikhanMay 19
@emmecola @Psy_Fer_ @giorgiogilestro on larger instances with more users you have to worry about database size. It is constantly growing.
Show threadMoreno Colaiacovo 🌍
@happykhan I see.. I'm curious, how big can the database become in instances like yours? @Psy_Fer_ @giorgiogilestro
May 19 at 5:53pmWeb
Show threadNabil-Fareed AlikhanMay 19

@emmecola @Psy_Fer_ @giorgiogilestro

Today the database is 84 gigs.

Show threadNabil-Fareed AlikhanMay 19
@emmecola @Psy_Fer_ @giorgiogilestro not sure if masto host handles it, but when running your own server you need a mail service as well. (i use postmark) additional cost,
Show threadMoreno Colaiacovo 🌍May 19
@happykhan You're right. I use Brevo, but with my low volumes it's free @Psy_Fer_ @giorgiogilestro
Show threadGiorgio GilestroMay 26
@happykhan @emmecola @Psy_Fer_ I do everything on a VPS, including mail. Mastodon is just one of the many services I run. Currently we have 318 active users and I pay 20 euro a month for the VPS (12 cores, 48Gb RAM, 550GB SSD).
Show threadJames Ferguson May 28
@giorgiogilestro What are your backup and downtime strategies with this?
Show threadJames Ferguson May 19
@happykhan @emmecola @giorgiogilestro I wish ours was that small 😅