From @bnewbold:

Erlend Sogge Heggen

Notes on Running a Full-Network atproto Relay (July 2024) | bryan newbold

These are some informal notes on setting up a full-network atproto Relay, using the bigsky relay software developed by Bluesky. This is the same software we run ourselves at https://bsky.network. The focus here is on the compute resources necessary to replicate the type of full-network, full-feature...

(whtwnd.com)

A relay of the entire Bluesky network can be run for $153/month. That’s mighty impressive!

Many #ActivityPub hosters are paying this amount for member counts in the low thousands.

silverpill

@erlend Comparisons between centralized services and nodes in a distributed network are not meaningful. Comparisons between a specialized relay service and a full social media server are also not meaningful. And finally, it is not ActivityPub that is expensive, but Mastodon. Other implementations are cheaper, some are 10-100x cheaper

BeAware :fediverse:

@erlend @fediversereport @bnewbold If only it didn't have to connect to BlueSky...

That's their problem right now. If it's only BlueSky, their "decentralization" doesn't exist.

julian

@[email protected] This, 100%.

@[email protected] Please don't paint all fediverse software as underperformant trash, most of us write pretty decent software.

For a member count in the "low thousands", real-time use you're looking at a tenth active at any given time, and that could be achieved with NodeBB with under $20 a month. Maybe less.

Some tech influencers hopped on the train of thought that hardware will always get cheaper, and that that gives you an excuse to build shit software. They say these things knowing full well that it leaves smaller operators with huge bills, or end users with low-end devices with sub-par user experiences.