Mastodon
CommunicationA federated social network server that you run yourself and that connects with other Mastodon servers.
Open-source alternative to:
What the free edition leaves out
Scroll sideways to view all columns →The official pages do not say enough about the free edition to give a verdict. “Not confirmed” means the official pages we read did not say, so we do not guess.
| Feature | Free edition | Details | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| SSO / SAML | Free | The configuration docs list SAML, OIDC, CAS and LDAP settings for the server. | Source ↗ |
| Role-based access control | Free | The roles docs describe Owner, Admin and Moderator roles and custom roles with permission flags and priorities. | Source ↗ |
| Audit logs | Free | The roles docs list viewing the audit log among the permissions given to the Moderator role. | Source ↗ |
| Multi-user / teams | Not confirmed | The roles docs describe several staff roles; user limits are not described. | Source ↗ |
| Backups and restore | Not confirmed | The backup docs describe manual steps with pg_dump, copying the Redis dump and uploaded files, and do not describe restoring. | Source ↗ |
| API access | Not confirmed | The API docs page showed no introductory text about availability. | Source ↗ |
| Support SLA | Not confirmed | No paid support is described on the pages read. | Source ↗ |
Best for
Communities, organizations and individuals who want their own server in the Mastodon network.
Why choose it over X
The software is free and AGPL-3.0 licensed, developed by a non-profit according to joinmastodon.org, and your server can talk to other Mastodon servers. The docs list roles, an audit log permission, and SAML, OIDC, CAS and LDAP login settings.
Where it falls short
The install guide covers Ubuntu and Debian from source and needs PostgreSQL, Redis, Ruby, Node.js, nginx and an email service, which is a lot to maintain. The backup docs describe manual steps and no restore procedure.
Open-source alternative to
- X — Mastodon is a social network with public posts and follows, which overlaps with X.
Ruby
TypeScript
JavaScript
Sass
Docker
React
React Router
Redux
Axios
Lodash
Vite
Storybook
Node.js
Express
Ruby on Rails
PostgreSQL
Redis
Vitest
Testing Library
ESLint
Renovate
GitHub Actions
Yarn
