I tried using the site and used it for a while, for what little non political and non flame war content it had. It got boring.

I don't particularly like some of the UX decisions and features, but overall it is a pretty well built piece of software.

I don't believe ruqqus federates, so "instance" would be the wrong word. It's a standalone server.

If you're interested in a federated Reddit clone, check out Lemmy: https://github.com/LemmyNet/lemmy