Lately I often read about kbin.social being similar to lemmy but more accessible. So I created an account there to check it out. My experience so far is a little mixed. From kbin I can access all Lemmy posts, although I find the interface less intuitive to join new communities. So from the kbin side it feels like an other Lemmy instance.

But when searching for kbin from this Lemmy Account, I do not find much. I feel like I am missing some basic concept, that makes it pretty clear. Why this is such a one way experience.

So now I am wondering: How does this work, what are the difference, what do both sites have in common?

  • damn@lemmy.fmhy.mlEnglish
    12·
    2 years ago

    kbin looks good but I can’t get over the fact that its backend is written in PHP. In the long run, lemmy’s Rust backend will probably be way more resource efficient and thus better for hosters. We’ll have to see though, since tech stacks aren’t the most important thing. But for me a Rust backend is a huge plus.

      • damn@lemmy.fmhy.mlEnglish
        2·
        2 years ago

        I’m sure it’s fine code, I just can’t imagine it’ll ever be as efficient as Rust.

        • ccunix@lemmy.mlEnglish
          2·
          2 years ago

          If it can run on PHP8 you get JIT compilation, which should go a long way to closing any gaps (if they exist, which I suspect not).

        • poVoq@slrpnk.netEnglish
          31·
          2 years ago

          Lemmy is not bottlenecked by anything related to the Rust code and neither is Kbin most likely. Modern php is efficient enough for it to not really matter (contrary to Python or Ruby etc.).

          • taladar@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
            1·
            2 years ago

            Modern PHP is better than PHP5 but it still uses that brain dead execution model where every request starts the entire framework from scratch.

  • Milan@discuss.tchncs.deEnglish
    1·
    2 years ago

    But when searching for kbin from this Lemmy Account, I do not find much. I feel like I am missing some basic concept, that makes it pretty clear. Why this is such a one way experience.

    Not sure if i understand correctly, but instances can only show you what they are aware of. This does not really depend on the underlaying software (unless it is specialized, like PeerTube maybe).

    • mrmanager@lemmy.todayEnglish
      2·
      2 years ago

      Is there a reason why instances couldn’t just index and show all the communities from other federated instances?

      Right now you have to do this to add a community from another instance:

      • Visit it, look in communities, copy the link to the community
      • Go back to the instance you were, paste link into search box and hit enter, then click the link, open sidebar, and click subscribe.

      I don’t see why instances couldn’t just have an index over communities on all federated instances, so it’s a one click action to subscribe to any community in the entire Lemmy fediverse.

      If this was implemented it would lower the bar for new users enormously, and encourage a lot more cross instance subscriptions.

    • YoTcA@feddit.deOP
      0·
      2 years ago

      Yeah, the design of the individual posts in the feed is nice. Are you using kbin on desktop? Because on mobile I only get the random feeds, when I search. And at least so far I find it a little confusing, where the random stuff starts and the search results end. But I think that will get better over time.

      So far I am only using Lemmy, but maybe this is also a nice entry point for the other services.

      What are the differences concerning privacy, you are talking about? Aren’t they using the same Lemmy infrastructure?