head to head · open source
Mastodon vs core
Mastodon has 50,465 GitHub stars, 7,536 forks, 4,525 open issues and last shipped yesterday. core has 8,837 stars, 2,063 forks, 141 open issues and last shipped yesterday. Mastodon leads on adoption by 471% (50,465 vs 8,837 stars). Mastodon is written in Ruby under AGPL-3.0; core is written in PHP under AGPL-3.0. Mastodon has attracted 15% as many forks as stars, core 23%. core was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee.
Two open source projects, one decision. Both are free and self-hostable — the differences are community size, license terms, language stack and release pace.
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Side by side
| Mastodon | core | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 50K | ★ 8.8K |
| License | AGPL-3.0 | AGPL-3.0 |
| Written in | Ruby | PHP |
| Last push | 2026-11-02 | 2026-11-02 |
| Forks | ⑂ 7.5K | ⑂ 2.1K |
| 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 core if
- You want the core feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the AGPL-3.0 license terms
- Your stack matches PHP
- You evaluated both and core fits your workflow better
About Mastodon
[!NOTE] Want to learn more about Mastodon? Click below to find out more in a video. 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, and 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!) Navigation Project homepage 🐘 Donate to support development 🎁 View sponsors Blog 📰 Documentation 📚 Official…
read the full Mastodon overview →
About core
ownCloud Core ownCloud Core is the server side component of ownCloud Classic, providing file storage, synchronization, and sharing trusted by over 200 million users worldwide. It includes WebDAV, CalDAV, and CardDAV servers, a plugin architecture for apps, user and group management, encryption support, external storage backends, and a comprehensive REST API. The server runs on PHP with support for MySQL, MariaDB, PostgreSQL, and SQLite databases. Part of ownCloud Classic This is the main repository for ownCloud Classic. It is the foundation that apps like Activity, Calendar, Contacts, and many others extend. The…
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Frequently asked questions
Is Mastodon or core more popular?
Mastodon has 50,465 GitHub stars and core has 8,837. Mastodon has the larger community by that measure.
Are Mastodon and core free?
Both are open source. Mastodon is licensed under AGPL-3.0 and core under AGPL-3.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between Mastodon and core?
Mastodon is written in Ruby and core in PHP. 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 core?
Choose Mastodon if you want the larger community (50,465 stars) or its AGPL-3.0 licence terms. Choose core if its feature set, stack or AGPL-3.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.