head to head · open source
Mastodon vs voyager
Mastodon has 50,465 GitHub stars, 7,536 forks, 4,525 open issues and last shipped yesterday. voyager has 1,829 stars, 175 forks, 256 open issues and last shipped 6 days ago. Mastodon leads on adoption by 2,659% (50,465 vs 1,829 stars). Mastodon is written in Ruby under AGPL-3.0; voyager is written in TypeScript under AGPL-3.0. Mastodon has attracted 15% as many forks as stars, voyager 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 | voyager | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 50K | ★ 1.8K |
| License | AGPL-3.0 | AGPL-3.0 |
| Written in | Ruby | TypeScript |
| Last push | 2026-11-02 | 2026-10-28 |
| Forks | ⑂ 7.5K | ⑂ 175 |
| 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 voyager if
- You want the voyager feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the AGPL-3.0 license terms
- Your stack matches TypeScript
- You evaluated both and voyager 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 voyager
Voyager A mobile first Lemmy web client Report Bug · Request Feature · Releases & 8203; Voyager for Lemmy Voyager is an Apollo like open source web client for Lemmy. It's a mobile first app, but works great on desktop devices, too. Please feel free to try it out! What does Voyager currently support? Light/dark mode View and subscribe to communities Multi account support Single comment thread context view Upvote, downvote and reply to threads and comments Interact with user profiles Comment thread collapsing A bunch of swipe gestures Messaging, mentions and replies Creating new posts (url/photo/text)…
read the full voyager overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Mastodon or voyager more popular?
Mastodon has 50,465 GitHub stars and voyager has 1,829. Mastodon has the larger community by that measure.
Are Mastodon and voyager free?
Both are open source. Mastodon is licensed under AGPL-3.0 and voyager under AGPL-3.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between Mastodon and voyager?
Mastodon is written in Ruby and voyager in TypeScript. 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 voyager?
Choose Mastodon if you want the larger community (50,465 stars) or its AGPL-3.0 licence terms. Choose voyager if its feature set, stack or AGPL-3.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.