Hi Fediverse admins / devs! I've got a question about instance software.
Up until now, I've been running a fork of glitch-soc that has served me well. Unfortunately, however, I'm starting to run up against some of Mastodon's limitations and the effort to maintain my own fork is just too much. (seriously, fuck Rails and especially Webpacker :blobfoxangry:) I'd like to switch instance software to something with more features out-of-the-box. I'm considering Calckey, but I don't have any experience with it or any other Misskey derivative. The feature set looks great on paper but I'd like to hear from someone who has actually run it (or at least seriously evaluated the software). I'd greatly appreciate any and all input! I'm especially curious about these questions:
The "Fediverse Software Comparison" table has a few mistakes in the Mastodon and glitch-soc columns. They're minor, but it makes me wonder if that table is really trustworthy? The table is based on personal knowledge
@hazel hello! I'm the lead dev of Calckey, so my viewpoint may be biased, but I'm happy to answer your questions:
Moderation features definitely good enough to run a well moderated instance, although some things may be missing from the Mastodon moderation experience. The things you make use of are there :)
Formatting doesn't break (in most cases), but Calckey/Misskey expands on top of existing markdown.
Emoji reacts - as far as I know, glitch-soc doesn't support emoji reactions. If it does, then it must be hidden behind some kind of setting I haven't found. It does have some improvements to custom in-text emojis, but that's separate from reactions.
Groups - glitch-soc (and maybe vanilla) has some rudimentary support for groups. They show up just like normal accounts, but you can follow and mention them which is enough to make it kinda work. Not sure if that's enough to qualify though.
Mobile app - glitch-soc is compatible with regular Mastodon apps. I'm not sure if glitch-specific features are available, but the apps should at least work.
One more that's not actually an error, but you may wish to know anyway. There are some forks of glitch-soc that actually do support quote posts. One example is Treehouse Systems.
By the way, thanks for making that comparison table! I don't want to come across as complaining or anything. 😅 Its really hard to find a decent comparison of fediverse software, and that table is one of the most concise and readable ones I've seen.
@hazel As for the markdown, each instance ships a guide built-in (there's a button on the post form that shows it as a pop-up). Here's a permalink: https://calckey.social/mfm-cheat-sheet
As for the table:
User backfilling right now only counts user profiles, not posts.
@kainoa Thanks! So on Mastodon, you can use the LOCAL_DOMAIN and WEB_DOMAIN settings to run the instance software on a subdomain of your actual instance domain. That lets you have profiles like user@some.domain even though the actual instance is running at sub.some.domain. Is that possible with Calckey? Its not a dealbreaker or anything, but it would be nice.
I am moving my outdated Oxwall social network to Calckey.
I chose Calckey because of the Galleries and Pages (blogs). Besides the timeline these are essential features at Gamer+.
Both of these features are immature, especially galleries. RSS support is only available for profiles now but shouldn't be hard to implement for galleries and pages.
I'm buying into the future which isn't too bad on an open source platform.
Sorry I couldn't help with your other questions. I have them too.
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