I made ana count on some mastodon instance. It wasnt a deliberate decision, I just picked one that seemed interesting from a list. That's what people recommended: find a small instance, don't go to the big ones. Well now I don't know what the instance was called, so I can't log back in because I don't know how to find it again.
When I went to try Lemmy I made of point of signing up for the biggest, most popular, instance, and I can use it in a straight forward way without worrying too much about federation. In general though Lemmy has been much more straightforward than Mastodon, which I gave up on after about 3 days, and then never used again because I couldn't remember where I had registered.
I know the username and password, I forgot the instance. I registered through an app so the login details were saved on my keychain but the keychain points to the app, not the instance.
I'm not saying I can't figure it out and do it better next time, but on Twitter if you forget your password you just push a button and then reset it. On mastodon if you forget your instance you're SOL. With Lemmy I know I'm on the big main instance and it's not a concern anymore.