this post was submitted on 28 Jul 2026
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Fediverse

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A community to talk about the Fediverse and all it's related services using ActivityPub (Mastodon, Lemmy, Mbin, etc).

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In the graph above I've arranged the 28 Threadiverse instances with at least 200 monthly active users (MAU)—orange instances running Lemmy, green Piefed, and red Mbin—on the basis of which instances they defederate.

Each instance has its MAU count listed below it, sourced from the latest MAU figures at Fediverse Observer, with adjustments made to the totals for Piefed (due to undercounting by outdated instances, as noted here; I used @Vicinus@piefed.zip's suggested estimate of 7,200 Piefed users) and Mbin (due to tardigram.com having a duplicate listing).

After adjustments, there are an estimated 43,287 monthly active Threadiverse users (35,184+7,200+903), of whom 87.84% are on the 28 largest instances. The percentages listed alongside the MAU figures correspond to each instance's share of the total MAU count.

Defederation data was sourced from Federation Checker. The tool doesn't support Mbin instances, so I left fedia.io in its own category. If any defederations are missing, feel free to let me know. Ideally such a chart should also include community blocks to better illustrate which instances block what, but that data doesn't appear to be as easily searchable.

I also noticed cases of some instances being listed as being defederated by another instance, despite not appearing on the defederation list for that instance (i.e. reddthat.com and lemmygrad.ml are listed as being mutually blocked, despite neither having the other on their block lists). In testing that federation, I noticed that !wholesome@reddthat.com did not federate to Lemmygrad while !memes@reddthat.com did, so clarification on that matter would be helpful.

While I'll update my generalized chart as needed to correct errors, perhaps at some point an automated federation mapping tool similar to the one feddit.de formerly hosted could be developed to more completely illustrate instance federation.

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[–] Valmond@lemmy.dbzer0.com 77 points 18 hours ago (3 children)

Well that's a confusing graph.

[–] VitoRobles@lemmy.today 12 points 11 hours ago

Yeah I cant understand it at all.

[–] SCmSTR@lemmy.blahaj.zone 30 points 17 hours ago* (last edited 17 hours ago) (1 children)

Since defederating is essentially an explicit block list and is directional, my assumption is that the groups that are circled have defederated from the things they're pointing at. I could be wrong.

Map needs a key/legend.

The red circled stuff seems to be only one possible option, but isn't visually very distinct, and the red circle shouldn't be broken like that, just make sure the lines are all visible.

[–] Zedstrian@sopuli.xyz 13 points 13 hours ago

Apologies for the confusion; didn't want to make it overly cluttered, but in retrospect I see that a legend would have been useful. I'll incorporate suggestions in a revision.

[–] mehquestion@lemmy.world 15 points 17 hours ago (2 children)

Yeah, as someone who is struggling to understand the concept of federation...this doesn't help me at all.

I guess what its saying, if you're on lemmy.world, you can't access content on lemmy.zip?

[–] lastlybutfirstly@lemmy.world 10 points 14 hours ago (2 children)

If I'm reading it correctly, lemmy.world cut ties from lemmygrad.ml and hexbear.net while hexbear.net and beehaw.org cut ties with lemmy.world. lemmy.zip appears to be connected to everyone.

[–] scytale@piefed.zip 2 points 2 hours ago

Yeah, .zip gives its users full autonomy to block instances/users as they see fit, which is why I’m on their instance.

[–] mehquestion@lemmy.world 3 points 14 hours ago (1 children)

Why would they do that? I'm unaware of internal issues in Lemmy at this point?

[–] khorovodoved@lemmy.zip 5 points 12 hours ago (1 children)

Ideological differences. Lemmy.world is liberal, while lemmygrad and hexbear are hardcore communists (aka tankies).

[–] WhyJiffie@sh.itjust.works 9 points 8 hours ago (1 children)

I believe its not the hardcore communism but the style of users on those instances. hexbear users were brigading communities of other instances, and their moderators did nothing. they earned it.

[–] yogurt@lemmy.world 1 points 2 hours ago

No hexbear was never federated. They started discussing whether to federate and writing moderation rules, sent them to other admins for input, and .world preemptively put hexbear on their defederation list. .world basically said it was ideological differences, they posted all the parts of the draft hexbear rules where they were explaining that hexbear was communist/anarchist and anti-western, and that was just a self-evident reason to preemptively defederate.

[–] ProdigalFrog@slrpnk.net 9 points 16 hours ago

The ones at the bottom that are below the None category aren't defederated from anyone, so they can access every instance.