head to head · open source
Mastodon vs misskey
Mastodon has 50,299 GitHub stars, 7,498 forks, 4,525 open issues and last shipped yesterday. misskey has 11,327 stars, 1,616 forks, 2,535 open issues and last shipped yesterday. Mastodon leads on adoption by 344% (50,299 vs 11,327 stars). Mastodon is written in Ruby under AGPL-3.0; misskey is written in TypeScript under AGPL-3.0. Mastodon has attracted 15% as many forks as stars, misskey 14%. misskey was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 3 topic tags (activitypub, fediverse, microblog), 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 | misskey | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 50K | ★ 11K |
| License | AGPL-3.0 | AGPL-3.0 |
| Written in | Ruby | TypeScript |
| Last push | 2026-09-17 | 2026-09-17 |
| Forks | ⑂ 7.5K | ⑂ 1.6K |
| 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 misskey if
- You want the misskey 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 misskey 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 misskey
Misskey is an open source, federated social media platform that is free forever, released under the AGPL 3.0 license. It is written in TypeScript and lives in the fediverse, the network of interoperable social platforms built on the ActivityPub protocol. The project has been developed for roughly ten years and carries the topics activitypub, federation, fediverse, microblog, and misskey. Its homepage and documentation hub is hosted at misskey hub.net.
read the full misskey overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Mastodon or misskey more popular?
Mastodon has 50,299 GitHub stars and misskey has 11,327. Mastodon has the larger community by that measure.
Are Mastodon and misskey free?
Both are open source. Mastodon is licensed under AGPL-3.0 and misskey under AGPL-3.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between Mastodon and misskey?
Mastodon is written in Ruby and misskey 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 misskey?
Choose Mastodon if you want the larger community (50,299 stars) or its AGPL-3.0 licence terms. Choose misskey if its feature set, stack or AGPL-3.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.