🧮 Decentralization Scoring System (v1.0)
This scoring system evaluates how decentralized and self-hostable a platform is, based on four core metrics.
📊 Scoring Metrics (Total: 100 Points)
Top Provider User Share (30 points): Measures how many users are on the largest instance. Full points if <10%; 0 if >80%.
Top Provider Content Share (30 points): Measures how much content is hosted by the largest instance. Full points if <10%; 0 if >80%.
Ease of Self-Hosting: Server (20 points): Technical ease of running your own backend. Full points for Docker/simple setup with good docs.
Ease of Self-Hosting: User Interface (20 points): Availability and usability of clients. Full points for accessible, FOSS, multi-platform clients.
📋 Example Breakdown (Estimates)
📧 Email (2025)
- Top Provider User Share: Apple ≈ 53.67% → Score: 4.5/30
- Top Provider Content Share: Apple likely handles >50% of mail → Score: 4.5/30
- Self-Hosting: Server: Easy (Leverage email hosting services) → Score: 18/20
- Self-Hosting: Client: Easy (Thunderbird, K-9, etc.) → Score: 18/20
Total: 45/100
🐹 Lemmy (2025)
- Top Provider User Share: lemmy.world ≈ 37.17% → Score: 12/30
- Top Provider Content Share: lemmy.world likely hosts ~37% content → Score: 12/30
- Self-Hosting: Server: Easy (Docker, low resource) → Score: 18/20
- Self-Hosting: Client: Good FOSS apps, web UI → Score: 18/20
Total: 60/100
🐘 Mastodon (2025)
- Top Provider User Share: mastodon.social ≈ 42.7% → Score: 11/30
- Top Provider Content Share: mastodon.social ≈ 45–50% content → Score: 10/30
- Self-Hosting: Server: Docker setup, moderate difficulty → Score: 15/20
- Self-Hosting: Client: Strong ecosystem (Tusky, web, etc.) → Score: 19/20
Total: 55/100
🔵 Bluesky (2025)
- Top Provider User Share: bsky.social ≈ ~90%+ (very centralized) → Score: 0/30
- Top Provider Content Share: Nearly all content on bsky.social → Score: 0/30
- Self-Hosting: Server: PDS hosting possible but very niche → Score: 4/20
- Self-Hosting: Client: Mostly official client; some 3rd party → Score: 10/20
Total: 14/100
🟥 Reddit (2025)
- Top Provider User Share: Reddit ≈ 48.4% → Score: 0/30
- Top Provider Content Share: Reddit hosts a significant portion of user-generated content → Score: 0/30
- Self-Hosting: Server: Not self-hostable (proprietary platform) → Score: 0/20
- Self-Hosting: Client: Some unofficial clients available → Score: 3/20
Total: 3/100
How Scores are Calculated
🧑🤝🧑 How User/Content Share Scores Work
This measures how many users are on the largest provider (or instance).
- 100% (one provider): If one provider has all the users, it gets 0 points.
- No provider > 10%: If no provider has more than 10%, it gets full 30 points.
- Between 10% and 80%: Anything in between is scored on a linear scale.
- > 80%: If a provider has more than 80%, it gets 0 points.
📊 Formula:
Score = 30 × (1 - (TopProviderShare - 10%) / 70%)
…but only if TopProviderShare is between 10% and 80%.
If below 10%, full 30. If above 80%, zero.
📌 Example:
If one provider has 40% of all users:
→ Score = 30 × (1 - (40 - 10) / 70) = 30 × (1 - 0.43) = 17.1 points
🖥️ How Ease of Self-Hosting Scores Work
These scores measure how easy it is for individuals or communities to run their own servers or use clients.
This looks at how technically easy it is to run your own backend (e.g., email server, Mastodon server) or User Interface (e.g., web-interface or mobile-app)
- Very Easy: One-command Docker, low resources, great documentation → 18–20 points
- Moderate: Docker or manual setup, some config, active community support → 13–17 points
- Hard: Complex setup, needs regular updates or custom config (e.g. DNS, spam) → 6–12 points
- Very Hard or Proprietary: Little to no self-hosting support, undocumented → 0–5 points
PS.
This is Version 1.0 so there are likely flaws and mistakes in it, feel free to help create the best version we can I’ve put it on https://github.com/NoBadDays/decentralization-score
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I’m disappointed. I thought you figured out how to have a decentralized scoring system 😃
10% to 80% seems like too wide a range for your range of “how many are on the largest instance” 10% means only 1 in ten users are on the largest instance and 9/10 are spread out on the rest, If anything that seems overly fragmented. On the other end 80% means 4/5 users are on the largest instance and 1/5 are shared between all other instances which is incredibly concentrated.
I’d sugest narrowing the range to 20% to 66%, 1 in 5 on the largest instance is still plenty dispersed to ensure that there is competition/variety and 2 in 3 users on the largest instance is already well into monopoly territory.
I kinda like it.
Also I had no idea Apple had so much email. I sort of thought gmail would have the top spot.
Edit: I see, it’s measuring clients. I assumed it was the host/provider
Yea I made a mistake with that, I corrected it in v1.1
So then Jellyfin gets full marks, right?
What’s considered an acceptable score on this? After looking at Lemmy and Mastodon barely making half the score.
In version 1.1 I uploaded Email, it now has a score of 90
The source I used before was wildly inaccurate.
I think above 50 id acceptable, but that’s open for discussion.
Lemmy & Mastodon loses a lot of points due to one instance having ~40% of the users and content.
It’s motivation for us to make sure everyone doesn’t just end up on lemmy.world
compared to everything else besides email, 50 or above looks good when you don’t have as much competition aiming to get to 100%
If users go to the defualt server, while things are federated, Mastodon and Lemmy already did their service by using activity pub.
It just seems like possibly we need to more so, educate users why going to the largest server could be a negative thing potentially leading to a monopoly. On one note, Lemmy.world isn’t a defualt server, while lemmy.ml was. So at least Lemmy is doing better in that regard while Mastodon.social, a default/official server from the original devs of Mastodon, could prove being even more concentrating them the trend on Lemmy where users might g to lemmy.world.
Ideally I’d like to see all types of different servers have user activity, but with a low user count, to make this more liley to happen the word about Fediverse needs to be advertised and spread around. So more people can discover it.
I feel like somehow advertising it at local libraries would acually help it go up in discoverability on poster or billboards etc.
Yea most services are basically fully controlled by one entity and score like less than 10.
So 50+ is really good, I think currently Email is the gold standard. Services should strive to be as decentralised as Email
How can Lemmy or Mastodon become more centralized like email, if it is the users who are signing up to the top largest servers. Users naturally might be attracted to servers with higher user counts.
Bump
