To keep it simple, no, any lemmy account will work with any instance*

*As long as thag instance has not decided to de-federate(remove it’s links to another instance of lemmy) from the instance you made you account on. (Looking at you beehaw)

If you don’t want to think about it too much.

In reality, you don’t have to worry about what instance a community comes from. If you like the content, just subscribe.

But, if you want to understand a bit more, here’s a few things explained.

Here’s a break down of the menus:

• Subscribed: posts from communities you subscribe to, from your instance and other instances

• Local: posts from the instance you signed up on

• All: posts from all instances (that allow connections from your instance)

If a community is on your instance it will just be the name (ex: cats)

If it’s from another instance it will have the @ with the instance name (ex: cats@lemmy.ml)