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Hometown vs Pleroma: catalog facts
Hometown	Pleroma
Free Free and open source; you pay only for your own hosting.	Free Free and open source under the AGPL. Hosting is separate.
Self-hosted	Web, Self-hosted
Local-only posts that stay on your own instance Supports a wider range of content types than Mastodon	Runs comfortably on hardware far smaller than Mastodon needs Mastodon-compatible API, so existing apps work
Requires running and maintaining your own Mastodon-style server Follows upstream Mastodon, so new features can arrive later	Smaller contributor base and slower release cadence Moderation tooling is less developed than Mastodon's
Self-hosted	Self-hosted, Web application
Open source	Open source
License: AGPL-3.0	License: AGPL-3.0
Not stated if an account is needed	Not stated if an account is needed
Not stated if it works offline	Not stated if it works offline
Official website Full listing and sources Checked September 24, 2026	Official website Full listing and sources Checked September 22, 2026

Catalog facts only. Anything “not stated” is unconfirmed. Check full listings for details.