Post #4821332 · Elektrine

2026-09-23 17:52 UTC

Running a Mastodon server is becoming increasingly problematic due to GenAI. There’s multiple different things happening, including but not limited to: - very aggressive scraping of user content and block evasion, with the resource costs that come with it - AI agents aggressively trying to register accounts and evade restrictions - rising cost of RAM - Mastodon is memory hungry, RAM is really expensive now It’s odd to experience first hand, it’s like being consumed by.. a void.

Replies (4)

@kboyd@phpc.social 2026-09-23 18:54

@GossiTheDog@cyberplace.social @WTL@mastodon.social out of curiosity, which parts of mastodon are the most memory-hungry? E.g., async queue handlers vs serving the actual app

Open ##4821933
@stux@mstdn.social 2026-09-23 21:50

@GossiTheDog@cyberplace.social this..

Open ##4823072
@strypey@mastodon.nzoss.nz 2026-09-23 23:51

@GossiTheDog@cyberplace.social > Mastodon is memory hungry, RAM is really expensive now AFAIK the Elixir back-end of Pleroma/ Akkoma can be uses with the Mastodon web client. Bonfire's Elixir back-end, forked from a Pleroma fork, could be another option. (1/2) #fediverse @sheogorath@microblog.shivering-isles.com

Open ##4825305
@agowa338@chaos.social 2026-09-23 22:21

@GossiTheDog@cyberplace.social Don't allow registrations or restrict it to after invites from existing users only. The scrapers are quite annoying, what kinda helps (in general, not sure about mastodon specifically) is putting dummy links there that the CSS hides and that scrapers will hit. Then once they connect to that endpoint block them as early in nftables as possible. I've a rule that when you connect to specific ports (or violate other conditions) just blackholes the traffic. And excessive caching.

Open ##4827133