head to head · open source
Mastodon vs pH7-Social-Dating-CMS
Mastodon has 50,299 GitHub stars, 7,498 forks, 4,525 open issues and last shipped yesterday. pH7-Social-Dating-CMS has 1,056 stars, 608 forks, 0 open issues and last shipped 2 days ago. Mastodon leads on adoption by 4,663% (50,299 vs 1,056 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 58%. 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 | 2026-09-17 | 2026-09-16 |
| Forks | ⑂ 7.5K | ⑂ 608 |
| 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
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 pH7-Social-Dating-CMS
pH7Builder is self hosted, open source PHP 8.2+ software for building white label dating sites, matchmaking communities, and social networks, aimed at entrepreneurs who want to keep control of their code, hosting, database, and member data.
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 50,299 GitHub stars and pH7-Social-Dating-CMS has 1,056. 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 (50,299 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.