When searching for communities, can you filter for specific names or by size of the community? Here is what I have when trying to identify communities in the default UI:
It would be useful to filter based on the community size to find the most active communities to be apart of.
Currently I am using LCS to help find communities I might be interested in.
Try https://lemmyverse.net/communities
It has the sort/filter options I think you’re looking for, and it doesn’t limit info to your instance’s perspective. (It always shows all instances, even if your home instance hasn’t made a connection to one yet, and it shows total subscribers across all instances.)
Click the !URL for an instance to copy it, then paste it in your home instance search bar to go there and subscribe.
Another useful resource is c/trendingcommunities@feddit.nl - not helpful for searching, but handy to check daily after you’ve built your subscriptions and want to see suggestions for growing communities.
Regular search features are lacking a bit due to the nature of federated servers. Hopefully these features will be added someday. Till then, dedicated sites like lemmyverse seem to be the best option.