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Open source communication - social networks and forums

Social Networking and Forum software. This page ranks 40 open-source social networks projects by a health score recomputed every night from repository data; nothing else affects the order. Discourse leads at 99/100 with 2,045 commits in the last 90 days and 48k stars, followed by Answer (97) and Lemmy (97). 27 of the 40 score 70 or above, 22 publish a Docker image, and the median health is 82. AGPL-3.0 is the most common licence, carried by 19 of them. Between them they stand in for Twitter, Facebook Groups, Reddit, Disqus and Instagram and 1 more proprietary products. The score weighs commits in the last 90 days, release recency, stars, archive status and Docker support; a low number means low measurable activity, not low quality, so a finished, stable tool can legitimately sit lower down.

updated Oct 2026 40 tools ★ 241k stars 22 with Docker median 82

Best for…

  • Most starred

    Mastodon

    50,463 stars on GitHub, the largest community in the category.

  • Most active

    PixelFed

    3,678 commits in the last 90 days, the fastest-moving codebase here.

  • Most permissive

    Answer

    Apache-2.0 licence with health 97/100: the strongest option if you need to embed or fork commercially.

Ranked by health

Table view

How the social network tools compare

Discourse edges Answer 99 to 97, and most of the difference is stars: 48k stars against 16k stars. Mastodon has the largest following at 50k stars, yet ranks #13 of 40, held back mostly by Docker support (no Docker image).

The most recent release is Mastodon v4.7.4, published yesterday. Enigma 1/2 BBS, Iceshrimp.NET, phpBB and 1 more publish no tagged releases, which costs up to 25 of the 100 points. None of the measured options scores under 40. By stack, PHP (12), Go (5) and Nodejs (4) are the most common. Answer, remark42, Scoold and 8 more are permissively licensed; Discourse, Lemmy, NodeBB and 25 more are copyleft. AsmBB is not hosted on a forge Repoly can read, so it has no measured score yet.

Communication - Social Networks and Forums: common questions

What is the best open source social network tool?

By Repoly's GitHub health score, Discourse at 99/100 (2,045 commits in 90 days, _gh-attach-assets from 4 months ago). Answer is next at 97; Discourse's lead comes mostly from stars. The score measures maintenance, not features, so shortlist the top few and try them.

Which social network tools are the most actively developed?

PixelFed (3,678 commits in 90 days), Discourse (2,045 commits in 90 days) and Loomio (1,371 commits in 90 days). Commit activity is 35 of the 100 health points, the largest single term.

Which social network tools can I run in Docker?

22 of 40 publish a Docker image or Compose file, led by Discourse, Answer, Lemmy, NodeBB, Misskey and 17 more.

Which social network tools have a permissive licence?

11 of 40: Answer (Apache-2.0), remark42 (MIT), Scoold (Apache-2.0), Simple Machines Forum (BSD-3-Clause), Artalk (MIT) and 6 more. 28 are copyleft.

Which paid products can open source social network tools replace?

Twitter (Misskey ranks highest here), Facebook Groups (Discourse ranks highest here), Reddit (Discourse ranks highest here), Disqus (remark42 ranks highest here) and Instagram (Misskey ranks highest here), plus 1 more listed on the comparison pages.

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