glitch-soc
A friendly fork of the Mastodon server software that adds experimental features on top of upstream.
These buttons open the developer's own site, repository or store listing in a new tab. wares.gg does not host downloads.
About glitch-soc
glitch-soc, also called Mastodon Glitch Edition, is a fork of Mastodon for people running their own instance. It tracks Mastodon's main branch and adds features such as formatted posts, local-only posts, collapsible posts, threaded mode, highlighting of misleading links, an option to hide follower counts and advanced theming through flavours and skins.
Several of its features, including bookmarks and custom profile metadata, were later adopted by Mastodon itself. Installation follows the standard Mastodon documentation, and the project warns that the extra features come with a risk of less stable software.
Strengths
- Adds formatted posts, local-only posts and threaded mode to Mastodon
- Installs and updates the same way as Mastodon
- Flavours and skins allow deeper theming
- Several features have proved useful enough to be adopted upstream
Limitations
- Experimental features may make it less stable than upstream Mastodon
- Requires running and maintaining your own server
Details
- Pricing
- FreeFree and open source; you pay only for your own server.
- License
- Open source, license not stated
- Developer
- The glitch-soc contributors
- Platforms
- Self-hosted
- How it runs
- Self-hosted
- Works offline
- No
- Best suited for
- Mastodon instance admins who want extra features beyond upstream
- Categories
- Social networks
- Last verified
- Added
- Provenance
- Facts checked against the developer's own pages and store listings, 1 sources on file.
Alternatives to glitch-soc
Compare allSoftware that can replace glitch-soc for an important use case, and what changes if you switch.
Mastodon
Federated microblogging server with no algorithmic feed.
Mastodon is the upstream server glitch-soc builds on, likely more stable but without formatted posts, local-only posts, threaded mode or flavours and skins.
Hometown
A self-hosted fork of Mastodon that adds local-only posting for community-focused instances.
Hometown is another AGPL-3.0 Mastodon fork that keeps local-only posts and adds wider content types, aimed at small community instances rather than experimental features.
Sharkey
A federated microblogging server forked from Misskey, with added features and a focus on performance.
Sharkey is a Misskey fork rather than a Mastodon fork, adding its own features and a performance focus while still federating with Mastodon and Akkoma.
Misskey
Feature-rich fediverse server with reactions, drive storage and theming.
Misskey offers custom reactions, quotes, a file drive and deep theming, but it is heavier to run and most documentation is in Japanese.
Akkoma
A self-hostable ActivityPub microblogging server forked from Pleroma, focused on custom expression.
Akkoma is a Pleroma fork with custom emoji reactions and Misskey-Flavoured Markdown, a different codebase from Mastodon that still federates with it.
Pleroma
Lightweight fediverse server that runs on very modest hardware.
Pleroma runs on far more modest hardware than Mastodon and keeps a Mastodon-compatible API, but has a smaller contributor base and weaker moderation tooling.
Iceshrimp.NET
A self-hosted ActivityPub microblogging server written in C#, continuing the Iceshrimp project.
Iceshrimp.NET is a C# microblogging server with a new codebase focused on performance, working with existing Mastodon client apps but with a smaller community.
GoToSocial
A lightweight self-hosted ActivityPub social network server written in Go.
GoToSocial is a lightweight Go server with safety-focused controls, deliberately offering fewer features than Mastodon and not intended for very large follower counts.
Similar software
Related functionality, not necessarily a direct replacement.
Elk
A lightweight open-source web client for Mastodon that runs in the browser.
Phanpy
A minimalistic, opinionated web client for reading and posting on Mastodon from a browser.
Tusky
A lightweight open-source Android client for Mastodon and other fediverse servers.
Ivory
A Mastodon client for iPhone, iPad and Mac from the makers of Tweetbot.
Ice Cubes
An open-source Mastodon client for iPhone, iPad and Mac, written in SwiftUI.
