If it works like email, you’ll miss content that is posted when the app isn’t running. I have a cheap hetzner box going that is running my personal lemmy instance but I don’t think it would work well to have it only running part of the time.

Or just list it as volunteer work…

Yeah, I’m running on an instance of just me and my wife, biggest downside is needing to subscribe to communities before we get content, but its sooo much faster.