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• Self-hosting
• Public Instances

A better, more intuitive way to use Lemmy, with a cleaner UI, more features, and snappier usage.

It is designed for all features to have an appealing and intuitive design, while being fast.

Put Photon on your own domain for easier onboarding.

# Use the env var PUBLIC_INSTANCE_URL to set the default instance URL.
docker run -p 8080:3000 -e PUBLIC_INSTANCE_URL=example.com ghcr.io/xyphyn/photon:latest

More unstable but latest features

Clone the repo:

git clone https://github.com/Xyphyn/photon && cd photon

and run the docker container:

docker build -t photon .

# Use the env var PUBLIC_INSTANCE_URL to set the default instance URL.
docker run -p 8080:3000 -it photon:latest

There you go, you now have an instance of Photon running.

The most common settings you'll use are PUBLIC_INSTANCE_URL. Some selfhosters with PUBLIC_SSR_ENABLED set to true might want the instance url to be different for the server. You can use the PUBLIC_INTERNAL_INSTANCE variable for that.

PUBLIC_MIGRATE_COOKIE is useful if you want to switch Photon to your default frontend. It'll convert the logged in cookie from lemmy-ui to a Photon account. It will only work if you have PUBLIC_INSTANCE_URL set, and it will login with that instance.

PUBLIC_SSR_ENABLED will have the initial load be rendered by the server, before the client router is loaded. This can lead to a faster feeling load initally, and will allow your instance to be better indexed by search bots, and allow users with JavaScript disabled to view Photon with a basic view.

These are the most important environment variables that you can change:

There are more options available that you can see at src/lib/settings.ts, by looking at the defaultSettings object.

The values for SortType, ListingType, and CommentSortType are defined by the lemmy-js-client library.

https://github.com/LemmyNet/lemmy-js-client/blob/main/src/types/ListingType.ts

• All
• Local
• Subscribed
• Moderator

(case sensitive)

https://github.com/LemmyNet/lemmy-js-client/blob/main/src/types/SortType.ts

• Active
• Hot
• New
• Old
• TopDay
• TopWeek
• TopMonth
• TopAll
• MostComments
• NewComments
• TopHour
• TopSixHour
• TopTwelveHour
• TopThreeMonths
• TopSixMonths
• TopNineMonths
• TopYear

https://github.com/LemmyNet/lemmy-js-client/blob/main/src/types/CommentSortType.ts values:

• Hot
• Top
• New
• Old
• Controversial

Want your instance added here? Make a GitHub issue or make a PR! (this is for general purpose Photon instances.)

phtn.app is the official instance and will get updates instantly.

You can donate at Buy me a Coffee