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, 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)!

Click below to learn more in a video:

Navigation

• Project homepage 🐘
• Support the development via Patreon
• View sponsors
• Blog
• Documentation
• Browse Mastodon servers
• Browse Mastodon apps

Features

No vendor lock-in: Fully interoperable with any conforming platform

It doesn't have to be Mastodon, whatever implements ActivityPub is part of the social network! Learn more

Real-time, chronological timeline updates

See the updates of people you're following appear in real-time in the UI via WebSockets. There's a firehose view as well!

Media attachments like images and short videos

Upload and view images and WebM/MP4 videos attached to the updates. Videos with no audio track are treated like GIFs; normal videos are looped - like vines!

Safety and moderation tools

Private posts, locked accounts, phrase filtering, muting, blocking and all sorts of other features, along with a reporting and moderation system. Learn more

OAuth2 and a straightforward REST API

Mastodon acts as an OAuth2 provider so 3rd party apps can use the REST and Streaming APIs, resulting in a rich app ecosystem with a lot of choices!

Deployment

Tech stack:

• Ruby on Rails powers the REST API and other web pages
• React.js and Redux are used for the dynamic parts of the interface
• Node.js powers the streaming API

Requirements:

• PostgreSQL 9.5+
• Redis 4+
• Ruby 2.5+
• Node.js 12+

The repository includes deployment configurations for Docker and docker-compose, but also a few specific platforms like Heroku, Scalingo, and Nanobox. The stand-alone installation guide is available in the documentation.

A Vagrant configuration is included for development purposes.

Development

Setting up a dev environment will vary based on your operating system. These set of instructions are assuming you are running on a Mac.

License

Copyright (C) 2016-2021 Eugen Rochko & other Mastodon contributors (see AUTHORS.md)

This program is free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU Affero General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation, either version 3 of the License, or (at your option) any later version.

This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU Affero General Public License for more details.

You should have received a copy of the GNU Affero General Public License along with this program. If not, see https://www.gnu.org/licenses/.