this post was submitted on 22 Apr 2025
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Decentralization Scoring System (v1.3) (lemm.ee)
submitted 1 day ago by AnonomousWolf@lemm.ee to c/fediverse@lemmy.world
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This scoring system evaluates how decentralized and self-hostable a platform is, based on four core metrics.

πŸ“Š Scoring Metrics (Total: 100 Points)

Metric Weight Description
Top Provider User Share 30 Measures how many users are on the largest instance. Full points if <20%; 0 if >80%.
Top Provider Content Share 30 Measures how much content is hosted by the largest instance. Full points if <20%; 0 if >80%.
Ease of Self-Hosting: Server 20 Technical ease of running your own backend. Full points for simple setup with good docs.
Ease of Self-Hosting: User Interface 20 Availability and usability of clients. Full points for accessible, FOSS, multi-platform clients.

πŸ“‹ Example Breakdown (Estimates)

Platform Score Visualization
πŸ“§ Email 95 🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩
🐹 Lemmy 79 🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩
🐘 Mastodon 74 🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩
🟣 PeerTube 94 🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩
πŸ–Ό Pixelfed 42 🟧🟧🟧🟧🟧🟧🟧🟧
πŸ”΅ Bluesky 14 πŸŸ₯πŸŸ₯πŸŸ₯
πŸŸ₯ Reddit 3 πŸŸ₯

πŸ“§ Email

  • Top Provider User Share: Google β‰ˆ 17% β†’ Score: 30/30
  • Top Provider Content Share: Google handles β‰ˆ 17% of mail β†’ Score: 30/30
  • Self-Hosting: Server: Easy (Can leverage hundreds of email hosting options) β†’ Score: 16/20
  • Self-Hosting: Client: Easy (Thunderbird, K-9, etc.) β†’ Score: 19/20

Total: 95/100

🐹 Lemmy

  • Top Provider User Share: lemmy.world β‰ˆ 37% β†’ Score: 21.5/30
  • Top Provider Content Share: lemmy.world hosts β‰ˆ 37% content β†’ Score: 21.5/30
  • Self-Hosting: Server: Easy (Docker, low resource) β†’ Score: 18/20
  • Self-Hosting: Client: Good FOSS apps, web UI β†’ Score: 18/20

Total: 79/100

🐘 Mastodon

  • Top Provider User Share: mastodon.social β‰ˆ 40% β†’ Score: 20/30
  • Top Provider Content Share: mastodon.social β‰ˆ 45–50% content β†’ Score: 20/30
  • Self-Hosting: Server: Docker setup, moderate difficulty β†’ Score: 15/20
  • Self-Hosting: Client: Strong ecosystem (Tusky, web, etc.) β†’ Score: 19/20

Total: 74/100

🟣 PeerTube

  • Top Provider User Share: wirtube.de β‰ˆ 14% β†’ Score: 30/30
  • Top Provider Content Share: Approximately 14% β†’ Score: 30/30
  • Self-Hosting: Server: Docker, active community, moderate resources β†’ Score: 16/20
  • Self-Hosting: Client: Web-first UI, FOSS, some mobile options β†’ Score: 18/20

Total: 94/100

πŸ–Ό Pixelfed

  • Top Provider User Share: pixelfed.social β‰ˆ 71% β†’ Score: 4.5/30
  • Top Provider Content Share: Approximately 71% β†’ Score: 4.5/30
  • Self-Hosting: Server: Laravel-based, Docker available, some config needed β†’ Score: 15/20
  • Self-Hosting: Client: Web UI, FOSS, mobile apps in progress β†’ Score: 18/20

Total: 42/100

πŸ”΅ Bluesky

  • Top Provider User Share: bsky.social β‰ˆ 99% β†’ Score: 0/30
  • Top Provider Content Share: Nearly all content on bsky.social β†’ Score: 0/30
  • Self-Hosting: Server: PDS hosting possible but very niche and poorly documented β†’ Score: 4/20
  • Self-Hosting: Client: Mostly official client; some 3rd party β†’ Score: 10/20

Total: 14/100

🟠 Reddit

  • Top Provider User Share: Reddit hosts 100% of user accounts β†’ Score: 0/30
  • Top Provider Content Share: Reddit hosts all user-generated content β†’ Score: 0/30
  • Self-Hosting: Server: Not self-hostable (proprietary platform) β†’ Score: 0/20
  • Self-Hosting: Client: Some unofficial clients available β†’ Score: 3/20

Total: 3/100

How Scores are Calculated

πŸ§‘β€πŸ€β€πŸ§‘ How User/Content Share Scores Work

This measures how many users are on the largest provider (or instance).

  • No provider > 20%: If no provider has more than 20%, it gets full 30 points.
  • Between 20% and 80%: Anything in between is scored on a linear scale.
  • > 80%: If a provider has more than 80%, it gets 0 points.

πŸ“Š Formula:

Score = 30 Γ— (1 - (TopProviderShare - 20) / 60)
…but only if TopProviderShare is between 20% and 80%.
If below 20%, full 30. If above 80%, zero.

πŸ“Œ Example:

If one provider has 40% of all users:
β†’ Score = 30 Γ— (1 - (40 - 20) / 60) = 30 Γ— (1 - 0.43) = 17.1 points

πŸ–₯️ How Ease of Self-Hosting Scores Work

These scores measure how easy it is for individuals or communities to run their own servers or use clients.

This looks at how technically easy it is to run your own backend (e.g., email server, Mastodon server) or User Interface (e.g., web-interface or mobile-app)

  • Very Easy: One-command or setup wizard, great documentation β†’ 18–20 points
  • Moderate: Docker or manual setup, some config, active community support β†’ 13–17 points
  • Hard: Complex setup, needs regular updates or custom config, poor documentation β†’ 6–12 points
  • Very Hard or Proprietary: Little to no self-hosting support, undocumented β†’ 0–5 points

πŸ“š Sources

Footnotes

This is a work in progress and may contain mistakes. If you have ideas or suggestions for improvement, feel free to let me know.

Source: https://github.com/NoBadDays/decentralization-score/blob/main/decentralization_score_2025.04.md

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[–] AnonomousWolf@lemm.ee 2 points 9 hours ago (1 children)

Why is there a "Top Provider Content Share" metric if its gonna score the same as the "Top Provider User Share" every time ?

As said in the footer, this is a work in progress, I'm posting it to get input and still refining sources

Why is the Top Provider Content Share not higher than the user share ? For instance, emails usually have at least one sender and one recipient, making it twice as likely that at least one of them is using gmail. If an email has 10 recipients across 10 different providers, each provider has a copy of the data

I'd love to get better data on this, I've looked but not yet found better data than what I included in the source

Why is ease of hosting a mail server rated so well ? How is "leveraging email hosting services" decentralized in any way ?

Here I'm a bit in two minds, sure it's difficult to SELF host email, but in practice it isn't because there are hundreds (Thousands?) of hosting options to choose from where you can choose your own domain etc. for the low price of basically-free

Why are we using a random repo created a few hours ago by a random github user as a reference ?

It's my repo, it's to keep track of the versions and so that others can copy, edit and share it if they like.

[–] dfyx@lemmy.helios42.de 2 points 9 hours ago (1 children)

Here I’m a bit in two minds, sure it’s difficult to SELF host email, but in practice it isn’t because there are hundreds (Thousands?) of hosting options to choose from where you can choose your own domain etc. for the low price of basically-free

I would prefer to limit this to actually hosting it on a machine you control. We don't consider redirecting a custom domain to a subreddit "self-hosting", do we? Yes, there are many email providers out there but that's more like existing lemmy or mastodon instances and not like hosting your own where you have full control over your data.

[–] AnonomousWolf@lemm.ee 1 points 9 hours ago

I would argue that is two different issues

"Are you free to easily move around and control your data" = High decentralization score

"do you have full control over your data?" = A different question