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Mastodon vs Hometown: catalog facts
Mastodon	Hometown
Free Free and open source under the AGPL. Hosting is separate.	Free Free and open source; you pay only for your own hosting.
Android, Web, Self-hosted	Self-hosted
Chronological timelines with no engagement ranking Federated, so moving servers does not mean losing your network	Local-only posts that stay on your own instance Supports a wider range of content types than Mastodon
Your experience depends heavily on which server you join Running a server has real moderation and maintenance cost	Requires running and maintaining your own Mastodon-style server Follows upstream Mastodon, so new features can arrive later
Self-hosted, Web application	Self-hosted
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 22, 2026	Official website Full listing and sources Checked September 24, 2026

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