// the find
maltfield/awesome-lemmy-instances
Comparison of different Lemmy Instances
A periodically auto-updated comparison table of Lemmy instances, built to help Reddit refugees pick where to register during the 2023 API protest exodus. A GitHub Actions cron job scrapes instance stats and regenerates the README via a Python script. It's a list repo, not a library.
The BI/BB (blocking/blocked-by) columns are the genuinely useful part — most instance comparison sites skip federation reach entirely, and knowing that feddit.dk blocks 539 instances tells you something real about what you'll miss. The CSV export makes the data usable outside the README. The automated stats-crawler workflow means the numbers aren't purely manual upkeep. Uptime percentage per instance is tracked, which matters when the whole value prop of self-hosted is 'your data, your reliability.'
Last push was June 2024, and the Lemmy instance landscape turns over fast — instances at the bottom of the list with 1-3 users are almost certainly dead now, but they're still in the table. The migration wave this was built for peaked in mid-2023; the repo's primary audience has mostly made their decision by now, which limits ongoing relevance. The Python script is a single file with no tests and no documentation, so contributing a fix or adding a new metric requires reading the whole thing to understand what it does. The 'just pick a random one, it doesn't matter' advice on the same page as a detailed 10-column comparison table is contradictory — either the nuance matters or it doesn't.