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Comment by spurgu | Hacker News Reader

What makes Pleroma different from for example Mastodon? Why would one choose one over the other?

mastodon needs like 4gb ram to properly work while pleroma can work on a 1gb ram vps/pi without any trouble. it is also easier to manage because there are less moving parts

it is much easier to host with lesser resources

Thanks! I had been considering Mastodon for a private (non-federated) little community. But from a quick look it seems Pleroma doesn't have any mobile apps? That's a dealbreaker for many people.

oh. pleroma does. there is tusky and fedilab. they are all intercompatible so it works wonderfully. just login.

In addition to the apps mentioned already, the mobile browser UI is actually well-liked by many.

Pleroma emulates Mastodon's API, so most Mastodon apps also work with it

Thanks! That's interesting. Looks like I have some research to do.

My experience as a Mastodon admin is that Pleroma is popular among people with anime girl avatars who like to post swastikas, ethnic slurs, and right-wing propaganda.

Why's that then?

Hell if I know. But it's a definite trend I've noticed.

Pleorma is easier to install and less resource-hungry, so the bar for setting up an instance is lower.

So you'll stick with more inefficient software for the sake of political ideology? The thought of that is very funny to me. It highlights everything wrong with software design today.

Mostly I stick with it because life’s too goddamn short to try and get something else up and running, never mind kludge together some way to import the existing accounts and posts, it’s what was there when I was willing to spend a couple of weeks making a place for my friends to talk.

That’s fair. I don’t see why you need to knock a more efficient implementation though.

My experience of Pleroma is primarily looking at the timelines of people who have been reported by my users. A large percentage of those reports come from white supremacists with anime girl avatars who are using Pleroma. After several years I am increasingly inclined to get a report, look at the offending user, see that they're on a Pleroma, and just block the whole site then and there without any further investigation.

I am pretty sure I am not the only Mastodon admin who feels this way; anyone coming to the Fediverse should probably be informed that this is a reputation this particular software has.

If this bugs you then do something to clean up Pleroma's overall act and make the racist trolls know they are no longer welcome to use it.

Are you aware that Mastodon and Pleroma are just servers?

Any offensive domain you come across could be running Mastodon, Pleroma, Misskey, etc. The behavior of individual servers doesn’t reflect on the open source technology they are using.

I guess it just so happens that offensive people prefer to use a more resource efficient technology. Not sure why that is, but I think it’s funny that people like yourself prefer crappy technology if it means that it aligns perfectly with your political beliefs. Just weird to think of servers in this way. As if NGINX could be political.

Yes, I am aware of this. I run a Mastodon. I have been running one for several years. And I see a lot more reports from my users of people on Pleromas than on Mastodons or on any other Fediverse server.

The original question was "What makes Pleroma different from for example Mastodon? Why would one choose one over the other?", and "Masto admins are less likely to cut you slack in a dispute if you're on a Pleroma because they see a lot of jerks using Pleromas" is a difference, IMHO.

I can't say I "prefer" Mastodon. It's the server that was there when I decided to start running one. One of my friends switched over from Masto to Misskey and seems to be happy with it but it was a lot of hassle to do the change, more than I'm willing to bother with.

Tools and systems pick up associations.

Old-school Unix systems. Mainframes. BBSes. Mac vs. PC. Hondas sporting spoilers. F150s sporting certain bumper stickers and exhaust modifications.

In cases, this becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.

For at least a signficant portion of the Fediverse, Pleroma use has come to be associated with a certain set of users, to the point that the servers are blocked on sight.

Which those seeking to join the Fediverse might care to take into account.

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