Mastodon
Free, open-source decentralized social media platform
Social networking that's not for sale: Your home feed should be filled with what matters to you most, not what a corporation thinks you should see. Radically different social media, back in the hands of the people.
Reviews for Mastodon
Hear what real users highlight about this tool.
Reviews praise Mastodon’s open, ad-free ethos and vibrant community, often calling it a strong Twitter alternative with higher signal-to-noise and flexible clients. Makers of Sill commend its alignment with open‑source ideals and community energy, while makers of Pipilo credit the network as foundational to their app. Common critiques target a cluttered UI, confusing settings, onboarding friction, and uneven features like search across instances. Some worry about moderation consistency. Overall sentiment is positive: powerful, decentralized, privacy‑respecting social networking that benefits from polish and clearer guidance.
This AI-generated snapshot distills top reviewer sentiments.
Mastodon is a decentralized social media platform that lets you share thoughts, follow people, and build communities—without algorithms controlling your feed. It’s open-source, ad-free, and split into independent servers (called instances), giving you full control over your experience. Think of it as social media reimagined for freedom, privacy, and real human connection.
The other of the two networks I built on, Mastodon meets all of my personal ideals in an open source web project. I'm constantly inspired by the team and community.
The social network that powers the app. Without it Pipilo wouldn't be available.
The features are amazing, but the UI is too cluttered. A clean UI would enhance it significantly. The settings can be headache-inducing; they are not user-friendly.
The future of social networking!
the future of social networking
Mastodon isn't bad. But boy is it a mess to use.
If you can take the time to build your follow graph, Mastodon provides the highest signal to nose ratio I’ve personally experienced in recent memory. The lack of recommendation algorithm defaults and the openness of the platform (allowing for a proliferation of clients) make Mastodon stand out from the exodus of Twitter DAU.
It would be great to have full-text search aka “elastic search” but I get why it's not available on all instances.