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Instance admins, how much does it cost you to run your instance? How much does that represent per active user? (feddit.org)

submitted 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) by Blaze@feddit.org to c/fediverse@lemmy.world

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Question triggered by the other post about instances shutting down due to costs

Summary of the answers:

lowest number so far: lemmy.ml with 0.03€ per user per month
a few others (feddit.uk, lemmy.zip) have around 0.11$ per user per month
obviously single user instance have higher costs

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[-] ptz@dubvee.org 90 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago)

Good question!

Mine's a small instance and runs on my existing infrastructure, so my only real cost (aside from a crazy amount of unpaid time and stress) is the domain name which is about $20/year.

If I moved it to dedicated infrastructure, I've estimated it would cost me about $65/mo for just the backend, UI, and database services (to maintain the same level of performance, anyway. Could probably host it for less and take a performance hit). Object storage for pict-rs would probably be around $10/mo since I force it to use webp and have a 512 KB limit for user uploads.

Those numbers may be a little high, but they're based on my existing VPS provider which has amazing SLAs and uptime.

[-] Blaze@feddit.org 25 points 3 months ago

Thanks for sharing! What would be the reason to move it to a dedicated infrastructure, you not needing your existing infrastructure?

[-] ptz@dubvee.org 25 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago)

What would be the reason to move it to a dedicated infrastructure, you not needing your existing infrastructure?

Yeah, that, or if I decide one day I don't want to deal with my own hardware anymore. I've got a hybrid cloud infrastructure currently, and most of the heavy services (DB mostly) run on my own hardware for cost/performance reasons (and I have fiber, so might as well use it lol)

[-] SirDerpy@lemmy.world 6 points 3 months ago

Would you mind sharing your active user count?

[-] originalucifer@moist.catsweat.com 12 points 3 months ago

its public across the verse at https://fedidb.org

ptz's for instance (heh) https://fedidb.org/network/instance/dubvee.org

[-] SirDerpy@lemmy.world 11 points 3 months ago

For others, the number is 8 "monthly active users".

As this instance is partially operating on "free" hardware, it's unlikely one can host an instance for much cheaper.

[-] abff08f4813c@j4vcdedmiokf56h3ho4t62mlku.srv.us 3 points 3 months ago

For me it's zero. In addition to reusing existing hardware, I have a subsidized internet connection that I reuse to connect my instance, and even the domain name is free.

Of course I also have fewer users - excluding me, zero.