head to head · open source
Mastodon vs SCrawler
Mastodon has 50,465 GitHub stars, 7,536 forks, 4,525 open issues and last shipped yesterday. SCrawler has 2,240 stars, 156 forks, 2 open issues and last shipped 5 days ago. Mastodon leads on adoption by 2,153% (50,465 vs 2,240 stars). Mastodon is written in Ruby under AGPL-3.0; SCrawler is written in Visual Basic .NET under GPL-3.0. Mastodon has attracted 15% as many forks as stars, SCrawler 7%. 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 | SCrawler | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 50K | ★ 2.2K |
| License | AGPL-3.0 | GPL-3.0 |
| Written in | Ruby | Visual Basic .NET |
| Last push | 2026-11-02 | 2026-10-29 |
| Forks | ⑂ 7.5K | ⑂ 156 |
| 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 SCrawler if
- You want the SCrawler feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the GPL-3.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Visual Basic .NET
- You evaluated both and SCrawler 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 SCrawler
🏳️🌈 Happy LGBT Pride Month 🎉 🏳️🌈 Social networks crawler 🏳️🌈 :eu: :greece: A program to download photo and video from any site (e.g. YouTube, YouTube Music, OnlyFans, Reddit, Twitter, Mastodon, Instagram, Threads, Facebook, TikTok, RedGifs, JustForFans, PornHub, XHamster, XVIDEOS, ThisVid, LPSG, Pinterest). If you like SCrawler, please like the program on this site and/or this Join our Discord server : If you have problems using the program, you can get help faster on our Discord server! Bitcoin : BC1Q0NH839FT5TA44DD7L7RLR97XDQAG9V8D6N7XET YouTube standalone application: What can program do: Download…
read the full SCrawler overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Mastodon or SCrawler more popular?
Mastodon has 50,465 GitHub stars and SCrawler has 2,240. Mastodon has the larger community by that measure.
Are Mastodon and SCrawler free?
Both are open source. Mastodon is licensed under AGPL-3.0 and SCrawler under GPL-3.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between Mastodon and SCrawler?
Mastodon is written in Ruby and SCrawler in Visual Basic .NET. 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 SCrawler?
Choose Mastodon if you want the larger community (50,465 stars) or its AGPL-3.0 licence terms. Choose SCrawler if its feature set, stack or GPL-3.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.