head to head · open source
Mastodon vs discuit
Mastodon has 50,299 GitHub stars, 7,498 forks, 4,525 open issues and last shipped yesterday. discuit has 551 stars, 77 forks, 69 open issues and last shipped 2 months ago. Mastodon leads on adoption by 9,029% (50,299 vs 551 stars). Mastodon is written in Ruby under AGPL-3.0; discuit is written in TypeScript under AGPL-3.0. Mastodon has attracted 15% as many forks as stars, discuit 14%. Mastodon 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.
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Side by side
| Mastodon | discuit | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 50K | ★ 551 |
| License | AGPL-3.0 | AGPL-3.0 |
| Written in | Ruby | TypeScript |
| Last push | 2026-09-17 | 2026-07-21 |
| Forks | ⑂ 7.5K | ⑂ 77 |
| 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 discuit if
- You want the discuit feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the AGPL-3.0 license terms
- Your stack matches TypeScript
- You evaluated both and discuit 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 discuit
Discuit is a free and open source community discussion platform, built on a Go backend and a React frontend, that anyone can self host as an alternative to Reddit.
read the full discuit overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Mastodon or discuit more popular?
Mastodon has 50,299 GitHub stars and discuit has 551. Mastodon has the larger community by that measure.
Are Mastodon and discuit free?
Both are open source. Mastodon is licensed under AGPL-3.0 and discuit under AGPL-3.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between Mastodon and discuit?
Mastodon is written in Ruby and discuit in TypeScript. 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 discuit?
Choose Mastodon if you want the larger community (50,299 stars) or its AGPL-3.0 licence terms. Choose discuit if its feature set, stack or AGPL-3.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.