Mastodon (social network)

For other uses, see Mastodon (disambiguation).

Mastodon
Original author(s)Eugen Rochko[1]
Developer(s)Mastodon gGmbH[2]
Initial release16 March 2016; 8 years ago (2016-03-16)[3]
Stable release
4.3.1[4] Edit this on Wikidata / 21 October 2024; 29 days ago (21 October 2024)
Preview release
4.3.0-rc1 / September 30, 2024; 50 days ago (2024-09-30)
Repository
Written inRuby on Rails, JavaScript (React.js, Redux)
Operating systemCross-platform
PlatformiOS, Android, Linux, BSD, macOS, Microsoft Windows
Available in93 languages[5]
TypeMicroblogging
LicenseAGPLv3+[6]
Websitejoinmastodon.org Edit this at Wikidata
A cartoon Mastodon mascot
The mascot of the Mastodon social network

Mastodon is a open source, self-hosted, social networking service. Mastodon uses the ActivityPub protocol for federation which allows users to communicate between independent Mastodon instances and other ActivityPub compatible services. Mastodon has microblogging features similar to Twitter, and is generally considered to be a part of the Fediverse.[7][8][9]

Mastodon was created by Eugen Rochko and revealed to the public via Hacker News in October 2016.[10] Not long after, it quickly gained popularity and became the dominant platform in the fediverse and overtaking the previous leader, GNU social. It gained significant adoption in 2022 following the acquisition of Twitter by Elon Musk.[11][12][13]

The project is maintained by the German non-profit Mastodon GmbH.[14] Development of Mastodon is crowd-funded, and does not contain any support for advertisements or monetized features.

  1. ^ Lekach, Sasha (6 April 2018). "The coder who built Mastodon is 24, fiercely independent, and doesn't care about money". Mashable. Retrieved 6 November 2019.
  2. ^ "The company behind Mastodon". joinmastodon.org.
  3. ^ "v0.1.0". 16 March 2016. Retrieved 18 July 2019 – via GitHub.
  4. ^ "Release 4.3.1". 21 October 2024. Retrieved 22 October 2024.
  5. ^ English plus 92 translations listed in "Mastodon translations in Crowdin". Crowdin. Retrieved 8 November 2022.
  6. ^ "mastodon/mastodon". Mastodon. 5 November 2022.
  7. ^ Chan, Wilfred (2 November 2022). "Mastodon gained 70,000 users after Musk's Twitter takeover. I joined them". The Guardian. Retrieved 3 November 2022.
  8. ^ Farokhmanesh, Megan (7 April 2017). "A beginner's guide to Mastodon, the hot new open-source Twitter clone". The Verge. Retrieved 4 February 2021.
  9. ^ Wong, Joon Ian (6 April 2017). "How to use Mastodon, the Twitter alternative that's becoming super popular". Quartz. Retrieved 4 February 2021.
  10. ^ "Show HN: A new decentralized microblogging platform". 5 October 2016. Retrieved 31 October 2022.
  11. ^ Cite error: The named reference :3 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  12. ^ Cite error: The named reference MSN1 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  13. ^ Cite error: The named reference CNET1 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  14. ^ Knight, Will. "The Man Behind Mastodon Built It for This Moment". Wired. ISSN 1059-1028. Retrieved 5 March 2023.