---
title: "My first impressions with Misskey"
slug: "misskey-first-impressions"
description: null
date: 2022-05-23T00:54:00+02:00
type: posts
draft: false
tags:
- Misskey
- Fediverse
toc: false
---

:source-highlighter: pygments
:idprefix:
:experimental: true
:toc:
:toclevels: 2

:url-pleroma: https://pleroma.social/
:url-misskey: https://misskey-hub.net/
:url-subwaytooter: https://github.com/tateisu/SubwayTooter
:url-milktea: https://github.com/pantasystem/MisskeyAndroidClient
:url-clip-aiscript: https://very.tastytea.de/clips/90bipryxt4

I switched from link:{url-pleroma}[Pleroma] to link:{url-misskey}[Misskey] about
a week ago. I'm writing down my first impressions here. I run a single user
instance, so i can't tell you anything about the local community functions.

The federation is working better::
Pleroma had problems federating with BookWyrm and PeerTube, i couldn't receive
posts from these platforms. It works flawlessly with Misskey.

Simpler configuration::
Misskey's configuration file is very short and contains only the absolutely
necessary. Everything else is configured in the web interface, although the
documentation can be improved in some areas. Pleroma on the other hand seems to
be much more flexible, at the cost of a more complicated
configuration.footnote:[I used Pleroma as a ‘from source’ installation. ‘OTP’
installations seem to be easier to configure.]

Custom emojis::
Pleroma has them too, but Misskey can send them as reaction (software that
doesn't support that receives favourites instead). The emojis of remote
instances can be searched and imported.

MarkDown support::
Like Pleroma, Misskey supports MarkDown when composing messages. However, there
are some differences. Misskey doesn't support lists and headlines at the moment,
but has some fun extra features, like a rainbow effect, bouncing text or a
sparkling effect. I recommend trying
`$[shake $[bounce $[x4 $[rainbow $[sparkle Ü]]]]]`. 😉

Suggestions for hashtags::
I always missed that. When you write a hashtag, you get suggestions based on the
ones you used before and others your server knows about.

Resource usage, server::
My Misskey instance with 1 user uses a little bit less than 600 MB RAM at the
moment. With Pleroma it was a bit less than 300 MB. On top of that there are
about 100 MB for PostgreSQL for both of them. I don't know how that scales with
more users. The CPU usage seems to be negligible for both.

Resource usage, web interface::
The web interface of Misskey is considerably more CPU intensive, particularly
when you load it first. The RAM usage seems to be about the same, a little less
than 20 MB according to `about:performance` in Firefox. On my more than 10 year
old laptop with Firefox without hardware acceleration it takes about 13 seconds
to load. After that the experience is smooth.

Antennas::
They work approximately like watching hashtags, but they can look for normal
text as well. You can add as many phrases as you like and the results can be
filtered with an ignore list.

Translations::
There is a Deepl integration! But in order to use the gratis API you have to
give them your credit card details. 🙁 The results are mixed, but often good
enough.

Thread view::
A lot better in Misskey, the levels are visualised properly, like in my e-mail
program. 💖

Follower import::
I forgot how it was when i switched to Pleroma. When i switched to Misskey, i
exported the list in Pleroma and imported it in Misskey, done. Or so i
thought. It seems the list was too long, or maybe something else happened. In
any case, the import stopped around the 100th account. I worked around that by
creating a new list from the differences of the Pleroma export and the Misskey
export, with the help of the Linux command line:
`comm -23 pleroma.csv misskey.csv > importthis.csv` (sort them with `sort`
beforehand).

Timelines::
For replies, the _note_ (post, toot) that is answered to is also shown. Nice
feature for _renotes_ (repeats, boosts), for long threads from people i follow,
not so much.

Programs::
The API is not compatible with Mastodon's, so programs written for Mastodon will
not work. link:{url-subwaytooter}[SubwayTooter] works pretty well, but i don't
like the user interface. link:{url-milktea}[Milktea] looks nice but it is in an
early development stage. At the moment, i use the
pass:[<abbr title="Progressive web application">PWA</abbr>] on my pocket
computer. It sucks a lot of power.

AiScript::
A programming language that apparently can be used to write plug-ins and
scripts. I looked at it briefly,footnote:[My insights so far are collected here:
{url-clip-aiscript}] but didn't engage with it seriously. Looks exciting!

Clips::
Collections you can add _notes_ to. They can be public or not. Useful to store
_favourites_ (bookmarks) in categories or to collect scattered wisdom into one
place.
