exovsMastodon
Two self-hosted projects, compared on the numbers selfhost.directory tracks live: score, popularity, release cadence and setup effort.
| exo | Mastodon | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 77/100 | 82/100 |
| Rank in category | #5 of 25 in LLM Inference | #2 of 69 in Social Networks & Forums |
| GitHub stars | 48 072 | 50 456 |
| Stars, last 30 days | +449 | +137 |
| Stable releases, 12 months | 7 | 38 |
| Latest release | v1.0.71 · 23 Apr 2026 | v4.4.26 · 1 Oct 2026 |
| Setup | Easy | Advanced |
| Official Docker image | No | Yes |
| License | Apache-2.0 | AGPL-3.0 |
| Main language | Python | Ruby |
Which one should you pick?
Mastodon scores 82/100 against 77/100 for exo, so it is the safer default.
Mastodon ships more often: 38 stable releases in the past year, against 7 for exo.
If you want the quickest setup, exo is easier to run; Mastodon needs more configuration.
exo is growing faster right now (+449 stars in 30 days).
exo details →Mastodon details →