I’ve been an account holder on Example2.net for about six months now, and I’m starting to wonder if it’s time for me to pack up and move to a different instance.

When I first joined, everything felt snappy and the moderation was really hands-off in a good way. But lately, the page load times have been brutal, especially during the evenings. I don't know if it’s because the server is getting overloaded or if they’re having issues with their database, but it’s making it hard to actually hold a conversation.

The pros:

The community culture is actually really chill. People are friendly, and there’s very little of the "toxic" back-and-forth you see on the bigger instances.

The issues:

Reliability is definitely dipping. I’ve had quite a few "500 Internal Server Error" messages over the last two weeks.

The mod team seems to be less active than they were a few months ago, so some of the duplicate threads are starting to clutter up the front page.

Is it just me, or is everyone else on Example2.net seeing the same thing? If you guys think it’s just this instance, does anyone have a recommendation for a more stable pixelfed server that has a similar "chill" vibe?

2/5 stars