Mastodon
Federated microblogging server.
Description from awesome-selfhosted (CC BY-SA 3.0)
Still maintained? Yes: 918 commits in the last 90 days, latest release v4.7.4 (Oct 2026).
Also an alternative to Twitter and Instagram.
At a glance
Mastodon quick facts
- Health score
- 89/100 GOOD
- Stars
- 50,463
- Last commit
- today (Oct 2026)
- Latest release
- v4.7.4, Oct 2026
- Licence
- AGPL-3.0
Top alternatives to Mastodon
Full rankings: Twitter alternatives, Instagram alternatives
In its own words
The project's README opens: "Mastodon is a free, open-source social network server based on ActivityPub where users can follow friends and discover new ones. On Mastodon, users can publish anything they want: links, pictures, text, and video. All Mastodon servers are interoperable as a federated network (users on one server can seamlessly communicate with users from another one, including non-Mastodon software that implements ActivityPub!)."
Why it ranks here
Health score explained
Mastodon scores 89/100, #13 of 40 in Communication - Social Networks and Forums: 918 commits in the last 90 days earn 35.0 of 35 points, the latest release (v4.7.4, yesterday) earns 25.0 of 25, 50,463 stars add 18.8 of 20, an active, unarchived repository keeps 10 and no advertised Docker image leaves the final 10 unclaimed. That places it in the good band (70 and above). The biggest shortfall is Docker support, worth 10.0 more points.
Recomputed nightly from the GitHub API. How the score is calculated.
- Commit activity 35.0 / 35
918 commits in 90 days (30+ scores full marks)
- Release recency 25.0 / 25
v4.7.4 released yesterday
- Stars 18.8 / 20
50k stars on GitHub (logarithmic)
- Not archived 10.0 / 10
Repository is active
- Docker support biggest shortfall 0.0 / 10
No Docker support advertised
Commit activity
- 918
- Last 90 days
- 3,084
- Last 12 months
- today
- Last push
Ranked #13 of 40 tools in Communication - Social Networks and Forums by health , between Habitat (#12) and HumHub (#14) .
Details
| Licence | AGPL-3.0 |
| Platforms | Ruby |
| Latest release | v4.7.4 · yesterday |
| Stars | 50,463 |
| Open issues | 4,408 |
| Docker | Not advertised |
| Repository | mastodon/mastodon ↗ |
Mastodon vs its top 5 alternatives
Active tools that share a comparison page or a category with Mastodon (Communication - Social Networks and Forums), scored on the same five terms.
| Tool | Health | Stars | Licence | Last commit |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Misskey | 96 | 11k | AGPL-3.0 | today |
| GoToSocial | 91 | 692 | AGPL-3.0 | today |
| Mastodon (this tool) | 89 | 50k | AGPL-3.0 | today |
| Akkoma | 83 | 71 | AGPL-3.0 | 25 days ago |
| Friendica | 83 | 1.7k | AGPL-3.0 | today |
| Pleroma | 68 | 6 | AGPL-3.0 | yesterday |
Mastodon: common questions
What does Mastodon replace?
Repoly lists Mastodon as an open-source alternative to Twitter and Instagram. Each comparison page ranks every alternative by the same health score, so you can see where Mastodon stands against the others.
Is Mastodon still maintained?
Mastodon had 918 commits in the last 90 days and its last push was today; the latest tagged release, v4.7.4, is from yesterday. Repoly recomputes this nightly.