It seems to me that lemmy.world is shaping up to the big one. Given how quickly Lemmy is updating (it being in it's infancy and all) means that until the sharp curve of QOL improvements tapers off, we're going to see more downtime on servers pretty much everywhere. This is exacerbated by lemmy.world being "the big one" because the massive influx of new users from reddit is slowing things down for us a bit. I'd say if you want to be a part of what feels like the "main" instance, lemmy.world is the way to go. However, untill we see the traffic and updates slow down a bit and normalize, there going to be some unreliability. Lemmy.ml is probably the next best bet for a large and reliable instance.

only time will tell but there is no downside in creating accounts in 3 or 4 instances (or one for Kbin and one for Lemmy). It's not only downtime but also defederation of instances or complete shutdowns why you should create some additional accounts.

People need to stop recommending the massive servers when everything's connected anyway.

Join/recommend some smaller ones at random instead, like lemmy.one, lemm.ee, vlemmy.net, and reddthat.com

Mastodon & Kbin can access Lemmy. Best have one of each, and 2 Lemmy's just to be sure.

Finding a good instance is the big quandary in using Lemmy and kbin.

Of course the instance I'm using is the best.

Anyway to vet for a good instance what I did initially was check ping times and hops. The first thing you want is an instance close to you with fast network traffic. Then I tried to get a feel for server performance just by using it. An instance that hangs a lot is going to be frustrating. Then there's admin settings and admin quality of the instance itself. I hit gold on the fifth instance I explored.

https://join-lemmy.org/instances

Also, Reddthat seems pretty good.

Mine, of course!

I am kidding (unless... 🤫), I would recommend taking a look at one of the Lemmy browsers such as this one which can show both instances and communities as well which will be good after you've got an account!

I'd also agree with the recommendations from others in regards to it being perfectly fine with having multiple accounts. I know most of the mobile apps seem to have support for that as well.

I don't really see a difference between the servers for the most part. I picked one my work IT doesn't block and won't change unless the admin gets power trippy.

Iusearchlinux.fyi

I created accounts on both Beehaw and here because they are the most active instances with the most users and content.

Viewing all and local still works fine without logging in at least.

Blahaj and world are the best. Don't join ML as it's pretty right wing and the creator is a tankie. Kbin would be next.

Bruh I've got accounts on like 8 different instances. You don't have to pick only one

I started on lemm.ee

While I really enjoyed that community and it's host, I eventually learned more about Lemmy and its developers and just no longer personally felt like I wanted to continue to use it.

I made the swap to kbin.social and have had a great experience. Signing up was easy, the format feels familiar and the community has been kind.

I just signed up for kbin and I’m not going to sign up for anything else and I’m okay with that. I’m having a lot of fun here as it reminds me of 00s internet.

I'd make accounts in a couple. I made one in a big instance, one in a smaller one (so I can still federate with places like beehaw and I don't feel like I'm contributing to the stress on lemmy.world), one in NSFW lemmy instance (since other instances tend to defederate from those), and one in kbin.social. I think I'll make a mastadon account, too, but I haven't yet.

The small Lemmy instance I joined is on links.dartboard.social if you want to join that one, too. The admin said he was planning on keeping it open for a long time, for the foreseeable future. The mobile apps like Connect, Jerboa, and Liftoff make it easy to switch accounts, too.

I have a kbin account and a Lemmy account for this reason. The bonus is that they use different sorting algorithms so when you open one up after the other you see a lot of different posts on the All feed.