There are absolutely viable forks/rewrites of the Lemmy backend. Sublinks was the one I was keeping an eye on, but progress seems to have slowed down significantly on that. It's supposed to be a drop-in replacement for Lemmy that continues working with current apps.

[–] Blaze@feddit.org 7 points 2 days ago (1 children)

!piefed_meta@piefed.social is definitely more promising

[–] princessnorah@lemmy.blahaj.zone 6 points 2 days ago (1 children)

I thought part of the difference with piefed is that it's not a drop-in replacement that can hook into current databases, such that an instance would have to start afresh on a new subdomain, and users would have to sign-up again, re-subscribe to their communities, etc. Is that the case, or was I mistaken?

[–] Blaze@feddit.org 6 points 2 days ago (1 children)

You're correct. On the other hand, Piefed is more or less usable today, and regularly gets updates. Sublinks hasn't had meetings or progress for over 6 months.

[–] princessnorah@lemmy.blahaj.zone 4 points 2 days ago (1 children)

For better or worse that still makes migration a much bigger pill to swallow though.

[–] Blaze@feddit.org 4 points 2 days ago

Seems like everyone just proved yesterday that a community could be migrated in a few hours if needed 😄

More seriously, you're correct, it will probably happen gradually with a few early adopters