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Mastodon vs Smithereen: catalog facts
Mastodon	Smithereen
Free Free and open source under the AGPL. Hosting is separate.	Free Free and released into the public domain under the Unlicense.
Android, Web, Self-hosted	Self-hosted
Chronological timelines with no engagement ranking Federated, so moving servers does not mean losing your network	Friends, walls and groups instead of a microblog feed Federates with other ActivityPub servers
Your experience depends heavily on which server you join Running a server has real moderation and maintenance cost	You need to run and maintain your own server Smaller community than Mastodon or other major fediverse servers
Self-hosted, Web application	Self-hosted
Open source	Open source
License: AGPL-3.0	License: Unlicense
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.