head to head · open source
Mastodon vs praw
Mastodon has 50,299 GitHub stars, 7,498 forks, 4,525 open issues and last shipped yesterday. praw has 4,256 stars, 501 forks, 0 open issues and last shipped 3 days ago. Mastodon leads on adoption by 1,082% (50,299 vs 4,256 stars). Mastodon is written in Ruby under AGPL-3.0; praw is written in Python under BSD-2-Clause. Mastodon has attracted 15% as many forks as stars, praw 12%. 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 | praw | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 50K | ★ 4.3K |
| License | AGPL-3.0 | BSD-2-Clause |
| Written in | Ruby | Python |
| Last push | 2026-09-17 | 2026-09-15 |
| Forks | ⑂ 7.5K | ⑂ 501 |
| 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 praw if
- You want the praw feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the BSD-2-Clause license terms
- Your stack matches Python
- You evaluated both and praw 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 praw
PRAW is the Python Reddit API Wrapper, a Python package for simple access to Reddit's API. It lives in the Python ecosystem and is classified under community and social networking tooling. The project uses the BSD 2 Clause license and has a sixteen year repository age, with a last push date of 2026 09 14. The repository lists 4254 stars and 500 forks.
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Frequently asked questions
Is Mastodon or praw more popular?
Mastodon has 50,299 GitHub stars and praw has 4,256. Mastodon has the larger community by that measure.
Are Mastodon and praw free?
Both are open source. Mastodon is licensed under AGPL-3.0 and praw under BSD-2-Clause. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between Mastodon and praw?
Mastodon is written in Ruby and praw in Python. 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 praw?
Choose Mastodon if you want the larger community (50,299 stars) or its AGPL-3.0 licence terms. Choose praw if its feature set, stack or BSD-2-Clause licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.