I heard once that the case for which instance (for any federated app, be it Lemmy or Mastodon etc) on which to sign up is to choose based on “administration” not subject. That is to say, it is better to experience the fediverse through moderation and other administrative decisions than it is to do so on a server that is “subject based.” Thoughts?
I started my own as well (I also run my own Mastodon server) in a Kubernetes cluster. It took maybe 30 minutes to get everything up and running in my home lab setup.
If you’ve never used Docker before and wanted to give it a shot, there will be a learning curve, but it’s honestly very rewarding and depending on whether it’s relevant to you, it’s a good professional skill to have as well