Mastodon

No Ads, No Bosses: Just Mastodon

Leave the tech giants behind. Enter a world of digital autonomy.

Mastodon is a social network – kind of like Twitter, but with one big difference: it’s not owned by anyone. It’s decentralized, which means there isn’t one single Mastodon platform, but many servers (instances) that are all connected. Each community can run its own server with its own rules and focus – and still talk to the wider network.

Why is that cool? Because you get to choose how and where to participate. You’re not locked into a single platform owned by a tech giant that mines your data or throttles your reach. Mastodon is ad-free, privacy-respecting, and community-driven – powered by people, not algorithms.

Rails, React, Redis – a peek under Mastodon’s hood.

Under the hood, Mastodon uses the ActivityPub protocol, which enables federated networks. Each Mastodon instance is an independent node that communicates with others via standardized APIs using JSON over HTTP – very REST-like.

Mastodon’s backend is written in Ruby on Rails, with a React frontend. It uses PostgreSQL, Redis, Sidekiq, and streaming APIs to manage queues and real-time updates. The architecture is modular and hackable – you can host your own instance, customize it, or build extensions. It’s a playground for sysadmins, protocol nerds, and anyone into distributed systems.

The best part? Mastodon is part of the Fediverse, a broader network of interoperable platforms like PeerTube (for video), Pixelfed (for images), and WriteFreely (for blogs) – all speaking ActivityPub. It’s like email, but for social media.

Mastodon is Open Source

Mastodon isn’t just decentralized and ad-free – it’s also fully open source. The source code is publicly available, transparent, and developed by a global community. You can run your own instance, build new features, or contribute to the project. Social media doesn’t have to be a black box – Mastodon proves there’s a better way.