join-lemmy.org regularly crawls all active Lemmy instances to keep the instance list updated. Additionally it also collects data from all Lemmy communities. The data is now publicly available in the following git repository:
https://github.com/LemmyNet/lemmy-statistics
Check the readme for details about the available data. Interestingly the numbers are quite different from other websites:
| join-lemmy.org | fediverse.observer | fedidb.com | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Monthly Active Users | 42.170 | 36.336 | 50.063 |
| Instances | 512 | 376 | 446 |
Here are some ideas what to do with the data:
- Recreate the Lemmymap, graphically showing the connections or defederations between instances.
- Render graphs, which could be added directly to join-lemmy.org (#532).
- Investigate what is causing the different numbers shown above.
- Run various types of analysis, like this one done by @malsadev.
- Build a tool to help users discover interesting and relevant communities.
The official join-lemmy.org page problematically includes Hexbear, which would account for 1,553 of the difference between it and fediverse.observer. The remaining 4,281 difference seems to be several servers not listed by fediverse.observer.
Those above 50 MAU exclusive to the join-lemmy list are aussie.zone (313), jlai.lu (273), lemmy.wtf (164), and lemdro.id (67), whereas those exclusive to the fediverse.observer list are lemmy.dorfrollenspiel.de (79), lemmy.cafe (72), and fosscad.io (59). If the official list selectively excludes those two (as it does lemmy.world and sh.itjust.works), then the remaining difference would be 3,464, otherwise 3,674. The rest can partly be explained the sum of servers with fewer than 50 MAU, though perhaps one list is updated at a different frequency than the other to explain the rest.
For the sake of Lemmy’s growth, it’s problematic that join-lemmy.org (as an official platform) features Hexbear, Lemmygrad, and Lemmy.ml so prominently. While I dislike Reddit enough to have not tossed away Lemmy as a whole for its tankies and instead blocked those instances, featuring and recommending the use of extremist instances hurts Lemmy’s image (and Piefed and Mbin by association) in the eyes of potential users.
[This user claims to have blocked the instance I registered on, so I assume they won’t read this]
Lemmy is what it is because of the beliefs and values of instances like lemmy.ml. There have been many other attempts at creating reddit alternatives, decades of them, from voat to raddle. The lead developers have clear values which guided Lemmy into being a better platform than reddit and the other reddit-like forums - free-and-open source, anti-commercial, decentralized, and counter to the pro-US media hegemony. These are not incidental, values aren’t a syncretic pick-and-choose buffet! They are a result of the socialist ideologies of the admins of each of those instances, and how they have been applied to material reality.
And keep in mind that these instances aren’t some outsider aberration, they were the three largest Lemmy instances until 2023, they remain large and popular, and host popular active communities frequented by users of many other instances.
And while Zedestrian perceives lemmy.ml, Lemmygrad and Hexbear as problematic (and I have my criticisms of each of them), from my perspective, many of the big liberalist instances are far more problematic, tolerating right-wing bigots, allowing obvious pro-US think-tank propaganda accounts, and banning users from advocating for action (including, where necessary, violence) against the ruling class destroying us and our planet. That’s a big reason why many left, for were banned from, reddit. Should lemmy.world and sh.itjust.works therefore be removed, for being problematically close to the harmful behaviors of reddit.com that many of us are trying to escape? That’s a serious reputational liability too, it can drive users away if they can’t find the places they want to join.