head to head · open source
Mastodon vs pH7-Social-Dating-CMS
Mastodon has 50,465 GitHub stars, 7,536 forks, 4,525 open issues and last shipped yesterday. pH7-Social-Dating-CMS has 1,063 stars, 609 forks, 0 open issues and last shipped yesterday. Mastodon leads on adoption by 4,647% (50,465 vs 1,063 stars). Mastodon is written in Ruby under AGPL-3.0; pH7-Social-Dating-CMS is written in PHP under MIT. Mastodon has attracted 15% as many forks as stars, pH7-Social-Dating-CMS 57%. Mastodon 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 | pH7-Social-Dating-CMS | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 50K | ★ 1.1K |
| License | AGPL-3.0 | MIT |
| Written in | Ruby | PHP |
| Last push | 2026-11-02 | 2026-11-02 |
| Forks | ⑂ 7.5K | ⑂ 609 |
| 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 pH7-Social-Dating-CMS if
- You want the pH7-Social-Dating-CMS feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches PHP
- You evaluated both and pH7-Social-Dating-CMS 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 pH7-Social-Dating-CMS
pH7Builder Self hosted, open source PHP software for building white label dating sites, matchmaking communities, and social networks. You keep control of the code, hosting, database, and member data. Formerly pH7CMS. What you need: PHP 8.2+, MySQL 8.0+, URL rewriting, and a web server. Composer 2 is needed only for a source checkout; the versioned release ZIP includes locked production dependencies. With the server ready, allow about 20–30 minutes for deployment and the guided browser installer. DNS, TLS certificate issuance, and mail provider approval are outside that estimate. Quick Start · Upgrade Guide ·…
read the full pH7-Social-Dating-CMS overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Mastodon or pH7-Social-Dating-CMS more popular?
Mastodon has 50,465 GitHub stars and pH7-Social-Dating-CMS has 1,063. Mastodon has the larger community by that measure.
Are Mastodon and pH7-Social-Dating-CMS free?
Both are open source. Mastodon is licensed under AGPL-3.0 and pH7-Social-Dating-CMS under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between Mastodon and pH7-Social-Dating-CMS?
Mastodon is written in Ruby and pH7-Social-Dating-CMS 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 pH7-Social-Dating-CMS?
Choose Mastodon if you want the larger community (50,465 stars) or its AGPL-3.0 licence terms. Choose pH7-Social-Dating-CMS if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.