Takeaways:
- No one is having a good week besides Bookwyrm
- Positive Daily Growth (last 7/7 Days): Bookwyrm
- Weekly Growth (5-10%, >500 MAU): Bookwyrm
- Mastodon's big drop (~291k) is actual a server count error (~285k) that was corrected, so a real drop of ~6k
Monthly Active Users^[1]^:
| Software | Current | Yesterday[1D] | Last Week[7D] | Last Month[30D] | 3 Months Ago[90D] | 6 Months Ago[180D] | 1 Year Ago[365D] | All-Time Maximum |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Piefed | 4835 | 4859 | 4904 | 5323 | 2057 | 1646 | 369 | 6179 |
| Lemmy | 36435 | 36472 | 36713 | 36854 | 35487 | 36511 | 52453 | 72618 |
| Mbin | 720 | 723 | 735 | 739 | 746 | 752 | 852 | 3967 |
| Threadiverse | 41990 | 42054 | 42352 | 42916 | 38290 | 38909 | 53674 | |
| Mastodon | 743327 | 743753 | 1034907 | 722867 | 732938 | 679417 | 837408 | 2737163 |
| NodeBB | 71934 | 73145 | 75744 | 62790 | 48338 | 33967 | 312 | 76801 |
| Pixelfed | 104341 | 105420 | 105792 | 106353 | 116430 | 96031 | 107297 | 338813 |
| Peertube | 43729 | 44115 | 44226 | 45042 | 28338 | 22216 | 34983 | 45936 |
| Writefreely | 2484 | 2865 | 3118 | 11097 | 1411 | 1295 | 7597 | 14709 |
| Loops | 3975 | 3976 | 4111 | 4953 | 2797 | 1598 | 0 | 29821 |
| Bookwyrm | 2193 | 2153 | 1998 | 1692 | 3744 | 2917 | 6735 | 9429 |
| NeoDB | 1819 | 1829 | 1845 | 1796 | 1986 | 1717 | 1841 | 2025 |
| Friendica | 2405 | 2434 | 2489 | 2506 | 1442 | 1543 | 3068 | 4734 |
| Forgejo | 112 | 114 | 123 | 127 | 500 | 578 | 565 | 1168 |
| Catodon | 118 | 119 | 120 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 128 |
| Funkwhale | 239 | 238 | 241 | 294 | 264 | 290 | 334 | 1114 |
| Flohmarkt | 26 | 26 | 26 | 23 | 27 | 13 | 0 | 40 |
| Fediverse | 1018692 | 1022241 | 1317092 | 1002456 | 976505 | 880491 | 1053814 |
Difference^[1]^:
| Software | -1 Day[1D] | -1 Week[7D] | -1 Month[30D] | -3 Months[90D] | -6 Months[180D] | -1 Year[365D] | -All-Time Maximum |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Piefed | -24 | -69 | -488 | 2778 | 3189 | 4466 | -1344 |
| Lemmy | -37 | -278 | -419 | 948 | -76 | -16018 | -36183 |
| Mbin | -3 | -15 | -19 | -26 | -32 | -132 | -3247 |
| Threadiverse | -64 | -362 | -926 | 3700 | 3081 | -11684 | |
| Mastodon | -426 | -291580 | 20460 | 10389 | 63910 | -94081 | -1993836 |
| NodeBB | -1211 | -3810 | 9144 | 23596 | 37967 | 71622 | -4867 |
| Pixelfed | -1079 | -1451 | -2012 | -12089 | 8310 | -2956 | -234472 |
| Peertube | -386 | -497 | -1313 | 15391 | 21513 | 8746 | -2207 |
| Writefreely | -381 | -634 | -8613 | 1073 | 1189 | -5113 | -12225 |
| Loops | -1 | -136 | -978 | 1178 | 2377 | 0 | -25846 |
| Bookwyrm | 40 | 195 | 501 | -1551 | -724 | -4542 | -7236 |
| NeoDB | -10 | -26 | 23 | -167 | 102 | -22 | -206 |
| Friendica | -29 | -84 | -101 | 963 | 862 | -663 | -2329 |
| Forgejo | -2 | -11 | -15 | -388 | -466 | -453 | -1056 |
| Catodon | -1 | -2 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | -10 |
| Funkwhale | 1 | -2 | -55 | -25 | -51 | -95 | -875 |
| Flohmarkt | 0 | 0 | 3 | -1 | 13 | 0 | -14 |
| Fediverse | -3549 | -298400 | 16236 | 42187 | 138201 | -35122 |
Change (%)^[1]^:
| Software | -1 Day[1D] | -1 Week[7D] | -1 Month[30D] | -3 Months[90D] | -6 Months[180D] | -1 Year[365D] | -All-Time Maximum |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Piefed | -0.5% | -1.4% | -9.2% | 135.1% | 193.7% | 1210.3% | -21.8% |
| Lemmy | -0.1% | -0.8% | -1.1% | 2.7% | -0.2% | -30.5% | -49.8% |
| Mbin | -0.4% | -2.0% | -2.6% | -3.5% | -4.3% | -15.5% | -81.9% |
| Threadiverse | -0.2% | -0.9% | -2.2% | 9.7% | 7.9% | -21.8% | |
| Mastodon | -0.1% | -28.2% | 2.8% | 1.4% | 9.4% | -11.2% | -72.8% |
| NodeBB | -1.7% | -5.0% | 14.6% | 48.8% | 111.8% | 22955.8% | -6.3% |
| Pixelfed | -1.0% | -1.4% | -1.9% | -10.4% | 8.7% | -2.8% | -69.2% |
| Peertube | -0.9% | -1.1% | -2.9% | 54.3% | 96.8% | 25.0% | -4.8% |
| Writefreely | -13.3% | -20.3% | -77.6% | 76.0% | 91.8% | -67.3% | -83.1% |
| Loops | -0.0% | -3.3% | -19.7% | 42.1% | 148.7% | 0.0% | -86.7% |
| Bookwyrm | 1.9% | 9.8% | 29.6% | -41.4% | -24.8% | -67.4% | -76.7% |
| NeoDB | -0.5% | -1.4% | 1.3% | -8.4% | 5.9% | -1.2% | -10.2% |
| Friendica | -1.2% | -3.4% | -4.0% | 66.8% | 55.9% | -21.6% | -49.2% |
| Forgejo | -1.8% | -8.9% | -11.8% | -77.6% | -80.6% | -80.2% | -90.4% |
| Catodon | -0.8% | -1.7% | 0.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% | -7.8% |
| Funkwhale | 0.4% | -0.8% | -18.7% | -9.5% | -17.6% | -28.4% | -78.5% |
| Flohmarkt | 0.0% | 0.0% | 13.0% | -3.7% | 100.0% | 0.0% | -35.0% |
| Fediverse | -0.3% | -22.7% | 1.6% | 4.3% | 15.7% | -3.3% |
Tracker Comparison^[1,2]^:
| Software | Fediverse-Observer^[1]^ | FediDB ^[2]^ |
|---|---|---|
| Piefed | 4835 | 5371 |
| Lemmy | 36435 | 47602 |
| Mbin | 720 | 1304 |
| Threadiverse | 41990 | 54277 |
| Mastodon | 743327 | 987911 |
| NodeBB | 71934 | 7084 |
| Pixelfed | 104341 | 108909 |
| Peertube | 43729 | 40049 |
| Writefreely | 2484 | 13592 |
| Loops | 3975 | 4045 |
| Bookwyrm | 2193 | 4495 |
| NeoDB | 1819 | 1844 |
| Friendica | 2405 | 3137 |
| Forgejo | 112 | 1664 |
| Catodon | 118 | 0 |
| Funkwhale | 239 | 741 |
| Fediverse | 1018692 | 1227748 |
- Source: [1] Fediverse-Observer, [2] FediDB
Notes:
- Threadiverse is Piefed, Lemmy, and Mbin. Fediverse only accounts for listed software [16], not the other [113] software tracked by Fediverse-Observer.
- Fediverse-Observer provides daily MAU back to 20221130. FediDB only provides a current snapshot (snapshot within the last 15 minutes, no time series data) and only tracks some of the software [67].
- FediDB seems to use unclear math to get there counts and overestimate the MAU on most software (see previous post, if interested in learning more).
I wish the threadverse software had more granularity in usage stats. For example, it might be really informative to know how many active users are those who only read and never interact versus those who vote, versus those who have contributed posts/comments within a given time period. For example, it feels to me like Lemmy has become far less active, even though the reported MAU has remained fairly stable - is this just my imagination, or are people feeling less inclined to post?
That would be nice to have. I think each instance admin would have to figure that out and provide it for their server and then someone come along and aggregate the results.
Without getting admins involved, I suppose each server's average posts or comments per MAU could be a calculatable metric.
It has seemed a bit less active, to me, the last week or two. The MAU are monthly, so if, for example, there was something that caused people to take a break last week, we wouldn't see it for another 3 weeks.
I was actually digging through Lemmy's codebase recently, trying to judge how difficult it would be to add. It seems that it probably wouldn't be that difficult, since MAU just counts all posts/comments/actions from the last month, with unique user IDs. You'd just need to do the same thing but without actions. Unfortunately, I don't know Rust, so I'm not sure if I can actually contribute anything.
I wasn't think of changing/adding the code base, but yeah, that wouldn't seem to be too difficult to someone who knew the language.
Without modifying anything, maybe instance activity could be determined by {number of comments} / {number of posts}? The higher the number, the more active it would be.
So looking at "/nodeinfo/2.1" on a couple random servers, they have "localposts", "localcomments", and users: "activemonthly", "activehalfyear", and "total".
Without admin access, someone could get what your asking for, but it would be an overall rather than a current snapshot. If someone wanted to do it, they could daily track the changes in comments, posts, and MAU. From there we could calculate a variety of 'activity' levels for each instance.
I'm semi curious what we'd see, but I don't think curious enough to code a script and run it daily. Maybe if I made a 'server' from an old laptop, but I wouldn't hold my breath on it happening.