Do you need to own a 24/7 online server separate from your main PC to create an instance?
I've heard a few people on here are starting their own personal instances so they can federate independently with different instances without relying on a larger, third-party instance. If I wanted to do this, would I need to own an actual server, separate from my PC?
eh, I used to host a minecraft server on my main rig back in the day and it's just not worth introducing that kind of instability onto your daily driver.
pay the ~$10/mo to set up your own instance on a VM somewhere, you'll have a better experience.
If you want to make it the easy way, yes. If you can handle using Linux as your sole daily driver system (or can manage to configure a virtual machine to run on boot over Windows while opening all the required ports in both Windows and the VM): not necessarily
24/7 online, yeah pretty much. There are people that host instances at home but they most likely already have a small homeserver setup.
Yup! Or you could pay someone like these guys to set up and manage the server for you. I've never used them myself, but the pricing looks reasonable.
You mean to only use this instance yourself, for you alone?
That's an interesting idea, and I have not found clear answers or downsides.
If you don't let others join, and do not host any communities yourself, why not?