head to head · open source
Mastodon vs owncast
Mastodon has 50,299 GitHub stars, 7,498 forks, 4,525 open issues and last shipped yesterday. owncast has 11,535 stars, 1,177 forks, 165 open issues and last shipped 2 days ago. Mastodon leads on adoption by 336% (50,299 vs 11,535 stars). Mastodon is written in Ruby under AGPL-3.0; owncast is written in Go under MIT. Mastodon has attracted 15% as many forks as stars, owncast 10%. Mastodon was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 2 topic tags (activitypub, fediverse), 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 | owncast | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 50K | ★ 12K |
| License | AGPL-3.0 | MIT |
| Written in | Ruby | Go |
| Last push | 2026-09-17 | 2026-09-16 |
| Forks | ⑂ 7.5K | ⑂ 1.2K |
| 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 owncast if
- You want the owncast feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches Go
- You evaluated both and owncast 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 owncast
Owncast is an open source, self hosted, single user live video streaming and chat server written in Go, with a React frontend, released under the MIT license. It positions itself as a way to run your own live streams in a style similar to the large mainstream streaming services, while keeping complete ownership over your content, interface, moderation, and audience. The project lives in the fediverse: its topic list covers ActivityPub, federation, and decentralized networking, placing it alongside other federated social software rather than inside a proprietary platform.
read the full owncast overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Mastodon or owncast more popular?
Mastodon has 50,299 GitHub stars and owncast has 11,535. Mastodon has the larger community by that measure.
Are Mastodon and owncast free?
Both are open source. Mastodon is licensed under AGPL-3.0 and owncast under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between Mastodon and owncast?
Mastodon is written in Ruby and owncast in Go. 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 owncast?
Choose Mastodon if you want the larger community (50,299 stars) or its AGPL-3.0 licence terms. Choose owncast if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.