my experience so far;
basedcount seems like a viable option but I asked them to defederate the loli federations etc and its not done (yet). Not sure if they didnt find time or if its bugged but important for me that the admin stays on top of their server for when the ddos kiddies come by.
If we wont manage to find a server im willing to host a small, completely defederated server without image uploads. Should be doable to keep costs under a couple dollars a month. I know donkey has hosting knowledge.
We can use image uploaders like Ye Olden Reddit and freeload on the app developers making apps for lemmy.