Yes we do :)
You can find the community for it at [email protected] and read the post about the launch on [email protected] (edit: https://lemmy.ca/post/39411782 )
As for private accounts, my understanding is no. There is some discussion here: https://github.com/pixelfed/pixelfed/issues/1763
It is something that’s being worked on, but I would advise holding off on posting anything that you want to keep truly private
We actually had a quick adjustment when we launched and immediately changed the name of the instance after the Pixelfed dev contacted us about the domain. You can see the pinned comment here: https://lemmy.ca/post/39411782
As for why both instances exist
We both launched around the same time. I think this is their launch post, which had it about a month before we launched https://cosocial.ca/@mwdawson/113839618312626769 By the time I learned about that instance, we already set up pixelfed.ca and were preparing to launch
I think there’s an advantage to having more choices available to users. Also lemmy instance admins often help each other out, and I’m sure it’ll be the same with pixelfed :)