I want to join the Fediverse. I don’t have a computer or anything to make something like a Lemmy instance, and I found that NodeBB will easily allow you to make a forum quickly, but I have to pay to do so. Should I just pay when I can or is there a free way to make a federated instance on a software?
The software is free, but hardware is not. You could buy an old laptop or even something really cheap, like an Orange Pi Zero.