The admin problem is real. We stood up a small instance using a canned image on vultr.com but I would not want to do much with it manually. It’s typical modern Rube Goldberg machine software. Few developers know how to code software that is nice to install and maintain anymore.
I blame Docker to a great extent. Docker made it easier to ship and manage giant balls of hair and chewing gum, encouraging developers to say “fuck it” and stop caring about cleanliness or consistency.
The instance we're running came with six docker containers and apparently includes Redis and something called "sidekiq" and Elasticsearch.
Without Docker setting this thing up would be painful and would require the setup of multiple pieces of infrastructure. I am a bit concerned about how painful it will be to maintain, upgrade, or fix if it breaks.
I blame Docker to a great extent. Docker made it easier to ship and manage giant balls of hair and chewing gum, encouraging developers to say “fuck it” and stop caring about cleanliness or consistency.
Mastodon isn’t bad on the front end though.