Falken

The specific distro doesn’t really matter. What matters is package choice (being able to do the few things you listed with the apps you would like to use). I guess if you’re among the Debian evangelists you probably value stability more than any other consideration. Just pick some server distro or Debian again.

Setting up an app in docker is the easiest option, even more than just simply installing the binary?

This isn’t new. I’ve been running my personal instance since last year using it.

Big deal, just self host in a VPS if you’re willing to pay $$$.

Don’t make the mistake though of self hosting (Dendrite) as it will just choke, in my case it was a single user instance subscribed to only a handful of channels but apparently that was too much for my server to load messages in any manner that would be considered quick.

I’ve self hosted several services at once on there but apparently Matrix is just too heavy too handle compared to other things.

It says it uses ActivityPub, so yes, interoperable. Though Mastodon has its own quirks and doesn’t line up neatly with the protocol.

Why would you join when you can just follow the accounts that interest you on it from Lemmy or Mastodon/Pleroma/Akkoma/etc ???