As a relatively new service, there aren’t a lot of companies providing turn-key Mastodon hosting, but one I’ve had my eye on for a while now is Masto.host<\/a> – and this is the one I decided to go with.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I am using my own domain (starkeith.net<\/a>) for this instance, so I went with the domain name social.starkeith.net<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I am running what is technically known as a “single user instance,” which isn’t quite<\/em> what Mastodon was intended for, but because I was migrating an existing account (along with all of the followers I’d gotten) it actually works out all right. I could add a few additional users without it being a problem, but for now it’s just me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Because of the way federation works, your instance needs resources based on how active its users are – and of course “activity” includes being viewed\/favorited\/boosted by other users. So you need to plan for enough capacity in case, say, one of your posts goes viral and suddenly gets a whole bunch of attention. But on the flip side, you don’t want to pay for capacity that you don’t normally need, or else you’re wasting money. <\/p>\n\n\n\n I ended up going for the 2nd from the smallest plan – it’s very affordable, and given that it’s just me, the price is about the same as what I was donating to my previous Mastodon instance. If my account grows significantly, I can always increase my plan.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Overall, I’ve been extraordinarily <\/em>happy with the results of having my own Mastodon instance – the hosting provider I use keeps the software up-to-date, and the performance has been great. There’s virtually no administration\/moderation required when it’s just me, and there have been virtually no “randos” showing up in my mentions (which was easily handled by de-federating from some known bot-filled\/spammy\/abusive instances, and there have been zero problems since). <\/p>\n\n\n\n In fact, my experience with having my own instance has convinced me that basically anyone with a website should have their own Mastodon instance under their domain name – it’s so easy and convenient, there’s really no excuse not to do it. You get complete control over your social media, yet you get the benefit of federation with the rest of the wider “fediverse” – it really is a win-win. <\/p>\n\n\n\n I’d love to see a world where every government organization, company, and university runs their own Mastodon instance under their domain name. For companies, it allows them to centralize and control their own social media presence. For governments, it allows them their own channel for distributing information and communicating with the public. For universities, I’d expect them to give out accounts to students in much the same way you get an email address. <\/p>\n\n\n\n If, like me, you have a domain name kicking around and can afford a few bucks a month, I’d highly recommend giving it a try. <\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" My experience thus far with running a single-user Mastodon instance under my own domain name.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":6200,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"webmentions_disabled_pings":false,"webmentions_disabled":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"activitypub_content_warning":"","activitypub_content_visibility":"local","activitypub_max_image_attachments":3,"activitypub_interaction_policy_quote":"anyone","activitypub_status":"pending","footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[203],"tags":[505,504,615,473],"class_list":["post-6199","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-internet-technology","tag-fediverse","tag-mastodon","tag-self-hosting","tag-social-media","entry"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/wp-content\/uploads\/\/2025\/01\/starkeith-social.png","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pimUj-1BZ","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":5941,"url":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/2022\/12\/02\/giving-mastodon-another-try\/","url_meta":{"origin":6199,"position":0},"title":"Giving Mastodon Another Try","author":"Keith Survell","date":"December 2, 2022","format":false,"excerpt":"Despite my recent post complaining about Mastodon, I do like the idea of it and I want it to succeed... so I decided to give it another try. The hardest part, as always, is finding a server\/instance - my interests are somewhat varied, so I didn't want to join a\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Internet"","block_context":{"text":"Internet","link":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/category\/technology\/internet-technology\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":5934,"url":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/2022\/11\/24\/mastodon-almost-but-not-quite\/","url_meta":{"origin":6199,"position":1},"title":"Mastodon – Almost, but Not Quite","author":"Keith Survell","date":"November 24, 2022","format":false,"excerpt":"I really wanted to like Mastodon - but unfortunately, I don't think I'll be using it, and I'll tell you why. If you're not familiar, here's the quick version of \"what is Mastodon?\" Mastodon is a decentralized social network, built upon the ActivityPub protocol and the idea of a \"Fediverse.\"\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Internet"","block_context":{"text":"Internet","link":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/category\/technology\/internet-technology\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":5972,"url":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/2022\/12\/14\/problems-remain-with-mastodon\/","url_meta":{"origin":6199,"position":2},"title":"Problems remain with Mastodon","author":"Keith Survell","date":"December 14, 2022","format":false,"excerpt":"Yes, I'm talking about Mastodon again. After the last installment of my Mastodon Saga - where I found that it wasn't just a database issue that erased my account, but rather a RAID failure - I held out hope that my account and prior posts (and most importantly, follower lists)\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Internet"","block_context":{"text":"Internet","link":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/category\/technology\/internet-technology\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":5955,"url":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/2022\/12\/08\/burned-by-mastodon-again\/","url_meta":{"origin":6199,"position":3},"title":"Burned by Mastodon, AGAIN","author":"Keith Survell","date":"December 8, 2022","format":false,"excerpt":"Following on the heels of my last post about Mastodon, unfortunately it seems I've been burned again. Much like how when I first tried Mastodon a few years ago and the instance I joined just up and vanished without warning, today I tried to log on and found that my\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Internet"","block_context":{"text":"Internet","link":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/category\/technology\/internet-technology\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/wp-content\/uploads\/\/2022\/12\/mastodon-not-found.png?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/wp-content\/uploads\/\/2022\/12\/mastodon-not-found.png?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/wp-content\/uploads\/\/2022\/12\/mastodon-not-found.png?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/wp-content\/uploads\/\/2022\/12\/mastodon-not-found.png?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/wp-content\/uploads\/\/2022\/12\/mastodon-not-found.png?resize=1050%2C600&ssl=1 3x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/wp-content\/uploads\/\/2022\/12\/mastodon-not-found.png?resize=1400%2C800&ssl=1 4x"},"classes":[]},{"id":6013,"url":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/2023\/01\/04\/keiths-belated-guide-to-mastodon-for-twitter-exiles\/","url_meta":{"origin":6199,"position":4},"title":"Keith’s Belated Guide to Mastodon (for Twitter Exiles)","author":"Keith Survell","date":"January 4, 2023","format":false,"excerpt":"There are a ton of \"what is Mastodon\" or \"getting started with Mastodon\" or \"what is this Mastodon thing, really?\" articles out there already, but this is my blog and I wanted to write my own guide, so here we are. Let's go! What isn't Mastodon Mastodon isn't Twitter. Let's\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Internet"","block_context":{"text":"Internet","link":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/category\/technology\/internet-technology\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":5743,"url":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/2022\/05\/03\/core-dump-into-the-fediverse\/","url_meta":{"origin":6199,"position":5},"title":"Core Dump: Into the Fediverse","author":"Keith Survell","date":"May 3, 2022","format":false,"excerpt":"Dipping my toes into the Fediverse by exposing my blog via ActivityPub","rel":"","context":"In "Internet"","block_context":{"text":"Internet","link":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/category\/technology\/internet-technology\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6199","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6199"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6199\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":27195,"href":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6199\/revisions\/27195"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6200"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6199"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6199"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6199"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/wp-content\/uploads\/\/2025\/01\/starkeith-social-800x420.png\")
<\/figure>\n\n\n\n