Usually, maintaining a server doesn't take much time once set-up. I personally use NixOS to manage my server, but it's very complicated, and I would not recommend it to a non-developer. However, there is tools/OS called YUNoHost, that is able automatically set up a bunch of services including lemmy and mastodon.

They also provide a free third level domain name (or can use your own, but do it before installing Mastodon or Lemmy, as it'll break federatio.), but you'll need to provide a server. You can rent one (I use an OVH VPS), but you may also just use a spare computer at home, or buy a cheap one (Everything that isn't a slow HDD should work well). I'm unsure about what capacity you need to plan for storage thought.

You should also probably make sure your ISP provide a static IP (that may disabled by default) and that they allow to configure port forwarding (can be found in the router settings usually).

Also, don't forget to set up an automatic backup system. YUNoHost probably recommend something in that matter.

Honestly, if you don't feel like self-hosting could be a hobby, just don't do it.

If done correctly, it can take up quite some time, but that can definitely be worth it (privacy, freedom, hobby/fun, etc). But if not done correctly, that can cause problems in security, performance, compatibility and perhaps even financials.

Just find an instance you like (read the rules about privacy, allowed languages, allowed content, etc) and create an account there.

Kbin has the link aggregator/forum functionality as well asicroblogging built in. So it would give you what Lemmy gives you and what Mastodon gives you all in one.

I also like the idea of selfhosting lemmy, but i have the impression the user experience will be degraded, as it will get federated events much slower than a server with thousands of users. Also, no "global" tab because you're the only user, so you won't discover new stuff

and a Mastodon instance

A Mastodon Mastodon instance, or just something to interact with Mastodon-compatible services? For the later maybe have a look in GoToSocial, especially when you host it as single-user instance just for you.

It needs very low resources and fits in a single Docker container with a single volume. All you need to keep in mind is that it is alpha software and not every single feature is fully supported yet. You also need a client because GoToSocial is just a server/back-end.

how much time investment do you think is needed to keep everything running smoothly

For GoToSocial it took me around a weekend, including learning how to use Docker and trying things out a lot.

I'm a software engineer, I have taken classes on docker, I host my own web pages, etc. and I STILL can't get it my own instance of Lemmy running. The instructions are unclear. They have bugs in their docker-compose.yml file. It's really bad. I have been working on it after work each day for the past 4 days. So far I got the UI working, but i can't log in or create an account. And I had to disable logging to get it running because I was getting an error with how the logger was defined in the yml file.

And because I was frustrated, even though I really, really didn't want to, I tried using their ansible setup. It still didn't work, and it completely fucked my server. It took me a few hours to undo all the shit it did.

It's not in a good state right now. Hopefully they fix it soon.

It took me a day or two to setup everything for my selfhosted lemmy juggling my day job hehe, I'm guessing it can take a none experienced person one weekend to deploy lemmy in a VPS with docker. After that I've just connected to it to upgrade from 0.17.3 to 0.17.4 and I'll have to update to 0.18.0 when it comes out.

Be sure to set up properly your firewall and follow any security recommendations (they should mostly be one time configurations).

For troubleshooting, google is your friend (or similar search engine). You can also hop into any chat the project may have (matrix, discord). Or you can post in communities specific for the problem you know you're having, or general ones like in here when you're lost.

I’ve had some bad experience setting up Mastodon. Tried everything, docker, baremetal, OS package, local build… In the end I decided to use Pleroma. Infinitely simpler.

Lemmy is also pretty easy to setup if you don’t use Docker.

As to maintenance, my experience has been…I don’t have to. For small instances, things could generally run themselves indefinitely. I have a dozen servers running on my VPS, ranging from telegram bots to websites to things like Lemmy. Some of them receivs a fair amount of traffic. I pretty much never need to login to my VPS.

My advice is. Try to keep wat you selfhost doable to run /set up. Selfhosting can be a rewarding hobby. But also a lot of work depending what you want to host. Just take your time. And plan things out.

Please do add a tag to your post as stated on the sublemmy sidebar! Thank you. :)