[HN Gopher] Pixelfed Hit 500K Users
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Pixelfed Hit 500K Users
Author : doener
Score : 247 points
Date : 2025-01-25 13:29 UTC (9 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (fedidb.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (fedidb.org)
| srameshc wrote:
| Can someone explain how is it planning to achieve the federation
| of that massive amount of data and storage ?
| arccy wrote:
| I believe the plan is to not have a plan (right now):
| https://mastodon.social/@dansup/113887622931474663
| boriskourt wrote:
| There is now also:
| https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/pixelfed/pixelfed-
| found...
| mg wrote:
| Isn't Pixelfed using the ActivityPub protocol?
|
| As far as I know, that makes it scale like email. When you post
| something, your host sends it to all recipients - everyone who
| subscribed to your posts.
|
| That does not sound like a lot of traffic. Even if one has 10k
| followers, as the post would only go once to each of _their_
| hosts. So if the 10k followers are on 100 hosts, that means 100
| messages.
| hexagonwin wrote:
| It is indeed using ActivityPub but most people are on the
| main instance and there's not much federation afaik.
| aloisdg wrote:
| right now. Let's make it grow
| mg wrote:
| Well, sure - if someone wanted to be the hoster for all
| mail traffic on planet earth, then they would need a lot of
| resources and a business model to finance it.
|
| But if that is their plan, why would they have used
| ActivityPub in the first place?
|
| So I guess they could just shut their door as soon as the
| traffic is too much for them to handle. And tell people to
| look for another host or host themselfes.
| treyd wrote:
| In addition to the other points, there was some discussion
| about more directly p2p exchange of content (like WebTorrent or
| something) to share the load more evenly. Spritely is a more
| methodical approach to it but it could be layered into
| ActivityPub as an extension without changes to the core
| protocol.
| evbogue wrote:
| Pixelfed could make a hash of every blob uploaded and then
| store that hash in the ActivityPub message. Then the clients
| could peer using WebTorrent or Trystero and randomly ask
| peers for that hash until it discovers a peer that has
| already cached the image. This would reduce load on dansup's
| server within his own ecosystem anyway.
| boramalper wrote:
| > the federation of that massive amount of data and storage
|
| I'm not sure what you mean by that but the media blobs (photos
| and videos) are not "federated" (i.e. passed around instances)
| most likely, but hosted in one place (the instance of the
| author) and referenced by their URL.
| cess11 wrote:
| I was under the impression that federated nodes acts as
| caches. Is this not the case?
| refulgentis wrote:
| Intuitively, it is unlikely there's 500K individual servers
| set up.
|
| We can then also observe other comments clarifying that no,
| there aren't 500K instances.
|
| The other comments provide...tweets? mastodons?...from the
| maintainer also clarify that in practice, there's 1 instance.
|
| People are questioning how that will scale, and the tweet
| from the maintainer was cited as part of that because the
| content of the tweet is that tl;dr there's a $2,600 month gap
| between Patreon and hosting costs.
| ruined wrote:
| it varies by activitypub implementation. mastodon for example
| caches media per instance, pleroma simply hotlinks.
|
| briefly searching through github issues, i believe pixelfed
| does not cache remote media. discussion on this issue about
| remote media cacheing seems to indicate that pixelfed only
| caches avatars
| https://github.com/pixelfed/pixelfed/issues/4571
| isodev wrote:
| Pixelfed works like any other Fediverse server. Content is
| stored on the node where it's posted by its author. The nodes
| of people following the account have the option to cache a copy
| of the posts or just keep a reference depending on their
| implementation but Mastodon for example would cache it.
| buyucu wrote:
| Mastodon seems to be doing pretty good so far on scaling up.
| Pixelfed is smaller than Mastodon, so it will be fine.
| natural219 wrote:
| This is incredible.
|
| 119 million posts, x ~10MB per picture,
|
| is like 1,200 petabytes? 1.2 exabytes?
|
| Am I missing something here... this seems very impressive.
| have_faith wrote:
| I'm making an assumption, but I would guess most of the images
| being shared are about a tenth of that.
| input_sh wrote:
| Images _and videos_ , though to be fair, the limit for both
| is 15 MB.
|
| And I think it's a safe assumption there's some ffmpeg /
| imagemagick running somewhere that reduces the size even
| further before serving it to others.
| donatzsky wrote:
| Each instance can set it's own size limits.
| akho wrote:
| You are off by some orders of magnitude.
| dawnerd wrote:
| I believe Dan said yesterday? It costs around 4k a month.
| Unsure if he's talking cad or us. Honestly more impressed it's
| only that much.
| cess11 wrote:
| More like 1 petabyte, no? iex(5)> mb =
| 119000000 * 10 1190000000 iex(6)> mb / 1000 /
| 1000 1190.0
| Almondsetat wrote:
| More like 1MB per JPEG picture
| arccy wrote:
| if you compress it properly for a fast web experience, you'll
| probably be better 10KB-100KB
| extra88 wrote:
| Those are transfer sizes, not sizes of the data at rest.
| Even transferred, the `srcset` for this image I picked at
| random includes a 178KB version; there's certainly a higher
| quality version stored, if not the original upload,
| something closer to it.
|
| https://www.instagram.com/pet/p/C327eIguGRL/?img_index=1
| vFunct wrote:
| Not even. Instagram photos are roughly 50kb-200kb for jpg's.
| aniviacat wrote:
| Why does the number at the top say "Total Users: 519,185", while
| the graph lower down, titled "Pixelfed User Count", maxes out at
| 316,151?
| RIMR wrote:
| Honestly, none of the numbers on this page add up..
| tetris11 wrote:
| My guess: Total federated users interacting with the instance,
| vs total users registered on that instance
| INTPenis wrote:
| I can't answer your question but in that vein I want to add
| that in general it's very easy to get sign ups on a fedi node.
| That's why I always preferred instances that closely vetted new
| users.
|
| The more relevant number is often active users.
|
| I ran one for many years and I quickly disabled open sign-ups
| due to all the bots I noticed.
| ZeroCool2u wrote:
| Just curious, is there an AT Protocol equivalent to Pixelfed?
| makizar wrote:
| Not right now, but it looks like someone is trying to build it
| on top of Bluesky: https://techcrunch.com/2025/01/15/bluesky-
| is-getting-its-own...
| blackeyeblitzar wrote:
| How does moderation / censorship work on Pixelfed?
| anticorporate wrote:
| Exactly like it works in Mastodon - it's up to the server
| admins, plus some controls in the client. Choose a server where
| the moderation matches your preferences, or start your own if
| you're unhappy with the options.
| duxup wrote:
| The only thing I don't like about the idea of having to pick
| the server / moderation is now that moderation meta
| conversation that is a potentially endless thing.
|
| I just don't know if back end meta is a really appealing
| feature to people in the long run...
|
| Maybe it will be, I'm just unsure.
| anticorporate wrote:
| I mean, how is that different than choosing between
| commercial social media platforms today? You're tacitly
| accepting whatever their moderation policy is. If you're
| fine with that, then it really doesn't matter which server
| you choose, the generic primary Pixelfed server will
| probably be fine for you. If you do care, you can change
| your mind. Fortunately it's much easier to move instances
| and still be found than with any commercial social media
| platform.
| cess11 wrote:
| Among the big ones I find it hard to not be surrounded by
| nazis or other forms of eugenics enthusiasts regardless
| of their moderation. On Mastodon it's easy to do. Some
| say Bluesky has a fix for it but I dislike the people
| promoting it the hardest too so I didn't check.
|
| Though I have to do a cleaning on Mastodon, shut away the
| Threads people that crop up on there now.
| mayneack wrote:
| There are some (incomplete) bluesky mastodon
| bridges/merged clients, so it's possible to be majority
| in one and follow people on the other if your network
| isn't concentrated on one.
|
| https://fed.brid.gy/
|
| https://openvibe.social/
| jeromegv wrote:
| I'd say bridgy is quite an impressive bridge, incomplete
| isn't fully capturing the extend of how well it work.
| verdverm wrote:
| I think moderation is a place where ATProto stands above
| the other options available. ATP gives the choice to the
| user, for moderation and algo feeds. Don't like Bluesky
| moderation, swap out the moderation service without
| changing apps or servers. Do your current moderation
| services miss something? Add another and stack them
| together. The design creates competition for both
| moderation and algorithms while removing the switching
| cost
|
| https://bsky.social/about/blog/03-12-2024-stackable-
| moderati...
| duxup wrote:
| For me it is just the potential for endless meta
| discussion about moderating.
|
| I agree that we choose one way or another, but putting
| that on you to pick between a bunch and then wonder what
| the difference is. It's a sorta "back end as a feature"
| but that is endless that is also a little disconnected
| from the experience.
|
| I'm not explaining it well, it just seems like "more"
| work to some extent.
| blackeyeblitzar wrote:
| Is there a default set of filters that is applied? My feeling
| is defaults end up skewing the entire platform.
| _whiteCaps_ wrote:
| You only see posts from people you follow or hashtags you
| follow, so my understanding is there are no default
| filters.
| bloopernova wrote:
| Between pixelfed and bluesky, there must be some juicy scaling
| issues that the devops teams had to tackle.
|
| If any of those devops folks are reading, tell us your horror
| stories!
| verdverm wrote:
| Blog about Bluesky architectural evolution:
| https://newsletter.pragmaticengineer.com/p/bluesky
| zero0529 wrote:
| Any recommendations for people to follow? Never used it before
| crimsoneer wrote:
| I'm excited. continue to think in the long run, I'm more excited
| by fedi than AT protocol
| enos_feedler wrote:
| What makes you more excited about Fedi vs. AT protocol?
| nikodunk wrote:
| You can host your own instance on a single server with Fedi,
| but need 3+ separate ones to host your own on AT protocol and
| it's more complex.
| mikae1 wrote:
| Pro ActivityPub (Mastodon, Pixelfed etc):
| https://dustycloud.org/blog/how-decentralized-is-bluesky/
|
| Pro Bluesky: https://whtwnd.com/bnewbold.net/3lbvbtqrg5t2t
| jadbox wrote:
| I don't know much about AT protocol, but afaik, it technically
| could work as fedi if everyone ran their own servers. Right?
| jeromegv wrote:
| Doesn't seem AT is advanced enough yet because nobody else
| but Bluesky is able to run a server.
| mpalmer wrote:
| Or- fedi's design encourages more self-hosting because it's
| so easy and straightforward. With AT, yes it's harder to
| run your own instance but there's also less reason to:
| personalized moderation/feeds are just built in.
| fabrice_d wrote:
| No, because there is no message passing in ATProto. So if you
| want eg. to know how many likes one of your posts has, you
| need to see the whole network aggregated through the
| firehose. No-one will push that "I like your post" message to
| your PDS.
| haunter wrote:
| Pixelfed active users: 27k
|
| 5% active users. Is that good or bad, compared to other social
| media sites?
| tredre3 wrote:
| Not sure if it's directly comparable to a service(pixelfed)'s
| MAU, but an engagement rate of 5% is considered quite good on
| social media.
| wood_spirit wrote:
| Sorry I haven't been following along and I have only a fuzzy idea
| of how these Twitter competitors work. Do users and posts on
| pixelfed federate with Bsky?
|
| I've heard of some people I know leaving Twitter for bsky. I
| never used Twitter myself. So if I want to suddenly become social
| do I have to join bsky to follow them etc or is there a whole
| constellation of alternatives?
|
| And if there are alternatives, which servers do the programmers
| who don't want politics and memes and stuff congregate on?
| fsflover wrote:
| Bluesky isn't really federated,
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42215410
| baobun wrote:
| Bluesky talks ATProto, which is a different protocol than
| ActivityPub used by Pixelfed.
|
| Pixelfed federates with anything speaking AP in "the
| Fediverse", though, like Mastodon, Lemmy, PeerTube so you can
| follow people across all those (https://fediverse.party)
| davidmurdoch wrote:
| How? It has as perpetual "No posts found!
|
| The service may be temporarily unavailable.
|
| Pull to refresh"
|
| message on the home screen of the app. Been like this since I
| first tried it in July.
|
| Any one here on HN actually consume content from pixelfed?
| nxpnsv wrote:
| I use this instance, and never had any problems
| https://metapixl.com/
| pacomerh wrote:
| I've been using it without issues, it's not perfect but I'm
| excited for something like the old instagram
| caycep wrote:
| the one thing they need is better contacts/friends discovery tbh.
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