I let a bot subscribe to a bunch of communities on my instance and I think it has caused it to really slow down. Trying to prune what I can. Will removing or purging help? If so, which is best? Is there a way to do it in bulk?
Removing is an admin “action” and the community will still have a history of previously existing, but is now in a “removed” state. This will federate.e
“Purging” wipes it from the database.
So, if I remove a community, does it save my instance from any work or storage related to getting new posts and whatnot from that community?
If you remove, the community will remain in your database and this action will federate that you removed it. It will take up storage space.
If you purge, all data about that community gets wiped.
I believe your best choice here is to purge, as that only happens on your home instance and has no impact on other instances.

