Photon

Jump to:

• 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.

Screenshots

Self-hosting

Put Photon on your own domain for easier onboarding.

Running from image

# 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

Running from repo

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.

Configuring default settings

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.

Listing Type

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

• All
• Local
• Subscribed
• Moderator

Sort Type

(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

Comment Sort Type

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

• Hot
• Top
• New
• Old
• Controversial

Public Instances

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.

Donate

You can donate at Buy me a Coffee