Even if you own an instance, the tools are non-existent.

Some basics things that should be present but aren't:

• A user directory for search and deletion
• Possibility to block communities for your whole instance
• Basic statistics. Both on the community and instance level
• Possibility to mute a user without banning them
• Allow creating a community but only after admin approval (right now it's free for all or admin only)
• Easy access to server logs without having to dig directly inside the hosting server
• Importing block/allow lists for federations using a file or url
• Adding an administrator from the server admin UI

The API is also lacking in a way that some of those things are not possible without deploying your own API talking directly with the postgress database.

For example, if you wanted to see upvote/downvotes for each individual users, the data to calcultate it is in the database but the Lemmy API doesn't provide that functionality.

While Lemmy is great as a platform, the management side of is glueing everything together just enough to not let it implode.