head to head · open source
Mastodon vs amethyst
Mastodon has 50,299 GitHub stars, 7,498 forks, 4,525 open issues and last shipped yesterday. amethyst has 1,601 stars, 221 forks, 114 open issues and last shipped yesterday. Mastodon leads on adoption by 3,042% (50,299 vs 1,601 stars). Mastodon is written in Ruby under AGPL-3.0; amethyst is written in Kotlin under MIT. Mastodon has attracted 15% as many forks as stars, amethyst 14%. amethyst was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 1 topic tag (social-network), so they are genuine substitutes rather than adjacent tools.
Two open source projects, one decision. Both are free and self-hostable — the differences are community size, license terms, language stack and release pace.
← all 8884 open source comparisons
Side by side
| Mastodon | amethyst | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 50K | ★ 1.6K |
| License | AGPL-3.0 | MIT |
| Written in | Ruby | Kotlin |
| Last push | 2026-09-17 | 2026-09-17 |
| Forks | ⑂ 7.5K | ⑂ 221 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick Mastodon if
- You weight community size — 50K stars and counting
- You want the AGPL-3.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Ruby
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick amethyst if
- You want the amethyst feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches Kotlin
- You evaluated both and amethyst fits your workflow better
About Mastodon
Mastodon is a free, open source, self hosted social network server built on ActivityPub that lets anyone run a microblogging community which interoperates with the wider Fediverse, and it is aimed at individuals, communities, and organisations that want to own their social graph instead of renting it from a platform.
read the full Mastodon overview →
About amethyst
Amethyst is Nostr client for Android. Project lives in Nostr social network ecosystem. GitHub description says Nostr client for Android. Topics say android, kotlin, nostr, social network. Category says Community & Social / Social Networking. Homepage is http://amethyst.social. License is MIT. Language is Kotlin. Repository has 1599 stars, 221 forks, 114 open issues. Repository age is 4 years. Last push is 2026 09 15T02:53:19Z. README lists GitHub downloads, Play Store installs, stable release, Quartz Maven Central, Quartz JitPack snapshots, CI, MIT license, DeepWiki.
read the full amethyst overview →
More in Community & Social
Related comparisons
More Social Networking projects
Compare either of these against the rest of the Social Networking field.
Frequently asked questions
Is Mastodon or amethyst more popular?
Mastodon has 50,299 GitHub stars and amethyst has 1,601. Mastodon has the larger community by that measure.
Are Mastodon and amethyst free?
Both are open source. Mastodon is licensed under AGPL-3.0 and amethyst under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between Mastodon and amethyst?
Mastodon is written in Ruby and amethyst in Kotlin. The practical differences are community size, licence terms, language stack and release cadence — all compared in the table above.
Which should I choose, Mastodon or amethyst?
Choose Mastodon if you want the larger community (50,299 stars) or its AGPL-3.0 licence terms. Choose amethyst if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.