Here's how I'm running this self-hosted mastodon: https://marketplace.digitalocean.com/apps/mastodon

Almost point-n-click, which the one nuisance that you need to have DNS records setup before you ssh in or the installer craps out (specifically, Lets Encrypt fails, and then it crashes on the second try).

...though I also went to some extra steps w/ nginx redirects to be able to have https://mastodon.petertodd.org be the mastodon server, yet have @pete be my identity. But that's optional.

@pete self-hosted mastodon at digitalocean based on your recommendation, thanks. Interesting platform, it seems toots only exist as long as your server and don't show up on my server even if I follow you. Also it took noticeable time (5-10 seconds) to initiate reply to your toot, wonder how scalable this thing is

@121 cool!

I think it's not fetching old toots or something. I have the same issue. I get stuff after I follow someone consistently though.

Should be plenty scalable for the exact same reason Twitter is: audiences aren't n-to-n. However if you have a huge audience, you might need to invest in a bigger server, or a CDN.