@at I don’t strictly run a Mastodon instance but Akkoma — it had the features that I wanted and was purported to be much less resource intensive than Mastodon.

Generally, it’s been very easy to run/update, but what I wish I’d known before I started is how very loosely some of the other Fedi servers support the Mastodon API. Not all clients will work with non-Mastodon instances and even if you write your own client, you end up having to do some controtions for everything to work correctly 🙂

On the other hand, if you are fine using the web interface provided by the server, then you should be fine … unless of course, you’re using GoToSocial 😛

@at it's setup hassle, not ongoing maintenance, for the most part--until you have to upgrade something. otherwise the admin work is comparable to moderating a subreddit. I would be more worried about the ongoing cost... I pay about $30/month to host an instance on DigitalOcean, and I'm lucky to have found a co-sponsor early on (as well as to be able to write off the rest as a business expense). Their "one-click" images do make it easier, but a few more clicks are involved. 😉