Copyright © KC Green

Snac

From Mastodon to snac: A Lighter Fediverse Stack

 infrastructure 

Why the lab dropped PostgreSQL, Redis, and object storage for a filesystem-backed snac instance — with VolSync restic backups.

The lab used to run Mastodon on Kubernetes: PostgreSQL, a Redis-compatible cache, and S3-shaped media storage on top of the usual edge stack. That worked, but it was heavy for a small personal instance — more moving parts than the workload justified.

The fediverse home at this-is-fine.social now runs snac instead: a minimal ActivityPub server in portable C, no database, all state on a single filesystem tree, backed up off-cluster with the same VolSync + restic pattern as other stateful apps.