The @FediTips@social.growyourown.services account created a site specifically to help people decide on a Mastodon server based on their needs and wants:
They're also an account worth following.
this post was submitted on 05 Jan 2026
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Since you are already on Mastodon, I would start by checking out the instances of people you have interacted with. Many topic-instances are still pretty general-purpose. Decentralize yourself! Join two or three instances. Subscribe to different topics on each. See what sticks.
On a small instance, the local feed is much more important. Local users have a larger influence on what you discover. So, check the local feed first. It may be a bit boring but should be free of spam. Check the external feed. It should not be too tacky, and have a CW where you want one. Check the moderation policy. If you want to commit to only one small instance, find out who pays the hosting and maybe donate.
https://hear-me.social/ is one possibility. It has the added benefit of a 12,000-character posting size as well, especially nice if the 500-character limit at .social was frustrating.
not a user of mastodon, but how do these long posts federate over?
Just like any other post. Character limit is an abstraction introduced by Mastodon, it has nothing to do with ActivityPub.
Why not self host it? If you use Software like snac or gotosocial its quiet easy and soft on resources.
Because not everyone is willing to self-host, deal with domains and take on a long-term commitment?
I'd say OP is right, looking for a stable, medium-sized instance is better for the Fediverse than pushing this idea that everyone should be running their own instance.
I'm also on SDF's Mastodon server. Fairly small and largely general purpose. Seems to have pretty good uptime.
SDF's instance is on FediDB's first page for user count.
I love how you can pick almost any number between 1 and 100 and there will be instances in FediDB with exactly that many accounts. Long tail indeed.