https://gotosocial.org/ currently seems to be the popular choice for mastodon compatible single user instances that are easy to setup and run.

Personally I run a https://akkoma.social/ instance, which works fine, but it is a bit more complex to setup and requires a lot of customization to look nice.

If you are looking for a system just for you and low on resources, I'd recommend https://gotosocial.org. Single binary, easy to setup and supports S3 storage.

Based on your requirements, I would suggest looking at one of the Firefish / CalcKey forks. They are ideal for single user or small instances and they support s3 compatible object storage out of the box.

I would recommend looking at Sharkey or Iceshrimp. Both are under very active development and have very responsive developers if you need support.

If you would like to check out an example, Ruud (of mastodon.world and lemmy.world) set up an instance of Sharkey at (you guessed it) sharkey.world.

The simplest solution to following a singular user is probably RSS. No additional software services required; only a generic RSS reader on your client device.

For Mastodon it's instance.tld/@user.rss.

If you want to host a single-user instance for yourself only, take a look at gotosocial or microblogpub?

As I understand it, most of the reasons the larger fedi softwares are so difficult to set up is because they require multi-user sign up and moderation tools (I may be wrong about the particulars, but to me it seems logical that you don't buy a bus to drive yourself to the office and back).

Mastodon is a hellavalot easier to self-host then Lemmy, so if you got Lemmy running reliably then Mastodon would be a breeze.

Just do that. I selfhost mastodon and its not much worse than lemmy. They’re both resource hogs in their own regard. As long as you dont open up user registration you should be fine. Also its by far the most advanced by now afaik.

Memos is actually quite a nice option: https://github.com/usememos/memos

Mastodon uses the ActivityPub protocol and so do a lot of other applications. Friendica is one that might suit your needs.

Well you're in luck, there's the Pleroma and Misskey family of apps out there that are ActivityPub compatible. Pleroma also has Akkoma as well, and there are far too many Misskey forks to count. Both of them support S3 I believe.

I selfhost both Lemmy and Mastodon. Lemmy is set and forget follow the communities you etc. Mastodon does need a little bit of tweeking after being setup. I have a script the removes remote content from my server after 7 days which keeps the used space down considerably. More details about the commands used can be found here -> https://docs.joinmastodon.org/admin/tootctl/#media-remove

Update: I have ended up with hosting a sharkey instance, mostly because of it's very active development and nice ui. ( No way it was cause of the shark costumed waifu )

The simplest solution would be to use a Nostr app to create a keypair (aka account). Then add the Mostr.pub relay. This will let you search for ActivityPub users and follow them as if it were a Twitter-style feed.

Everyone gives solid advice, so I will point you to trusty https://fedidb.org/software .
Mostly to see stats of Fediverse but also the soft that is available. Maybe you find one that suit you.

New Lemmy Post: Selfhosted twitter alternative, not mastodon if possible (https://lemmy.world/post/11903738)
Tagging: #SelfHosted

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id suggest mbin, as it does both (forums:lemmy, microblog:mastodon). im happy with it. check it out, https://moist.catsweat.com