head to head · open source
Mastodon vs writefreely
Mastodon has 50,465 GitHub stars, 7,536 forks, 4,525 open issues and last shipped yesterday. writefreely has 5,284 stars, 406 forks, 108 open issues and last shipped 2 days ago. Mastodon leads on adoption by 855% (50,465 vs 5,284 stars). Mastodon is written in Ruby under AGPL-3.0; writefreely is written in Go under AGPL-3.0. Mastodon has attracted 15% as many forks as stars, writefreely 8%. Mastodon was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 1 topic tag (activitypub), 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 | writefreely | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 50K | ★ 5.3K |
| License | AGPL-3.0 | AGPL-3.0 |
| Written in | Ruby | Go |
| Last push | 2026-11-02 | 2026-11-01 |
| Forks | ⑂ 7.5K | ⑂ 406 |
| 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 writefreely if
- You want the writefreely feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the AGPL-3.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Go
- You evaluated both and writefreely 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 writefreely
WriteFreely is a clean, minimalist publishing platform made for writers. Start a blog, share knowledge within your organization, or build a community around the shared act of writing. Try the writing experience Find an instance Features Made for writing Built on a plain, auto saving editor, WriteFreely gives you a distraction free writing environment. Once published, your words are front and center, and easy to read. A connected community Start writing together, publicly or privately. Connect with other communities, whether running WriteFreely, Plume, or other ActivityPub powered software. And bring members on…
read the full writefreely overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Mastodon or writefreely more popular?
Mastodon has 50,465 GitHub stars and writefreely has 5,284. Mastodon has the larger community by that measure.
Are Mastodon and writefreely free?
Both are open source. Mastodon is licensed under AGPL-3.0 and writefreely under AGPL-3.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between Mastodon and writefreely?
Mastodon is written in Ruby and writefreely in Go. 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 writefreely?
Choose Mastodon if you want the larger community (50,465 stars) or its AGPL-3.0 licence terms. Choose writefreely if its feature set, stack or AGPL-3.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.