When I first joined Lemmy, I opened instance list and picked the instance when the easiest sign-up: lemmy.org. Then I wrote posts and comments to nothing for a week before realising it was defederated by all major instances and nobody sees my content. Ironic: I quit Reddit over a shadowban and my whole instance appears to be shadowbanned here. Then I joined an instance with downtime spikes resembling brush bristles.

I don't want to leave it up to chance this time. Pixelfed offers me these two options on sign-up. Which one is better?

Pixelfed.social is the flagship instance run by the developer. Personally, I'd recommend a vernissage instance though, at least if you want an experience more like flickr and less like instagram.

What is a vernissage instance? Compared to a regular one.

Vernissage is a PixelFed competitor and will be open and support ActivityPub too. IMO I prefer it over PixelFed due to how PF’s creator acts at times.

To be clear, it already supports ActivityPub! Pixelfed and Vernissage interact with each other!

Is this a iOS thing only?

It’s on the web