Mastodon is a **free, open-source social network server** based on ActivityPub where users can follow friends and discover new ones. On Mastodon, users can publish anything they want: links, pictures, text, and video. All Mastodon servers are interoperable as a federated network (users on one server can seamlessly communicate with users from another one, including non-Mastodon software that implements ActivityPub!)
### No vendor lock-in: Fully interoperable with any conforming platform
It doesn't have to be Mastodon; whatever implements ActivityPub is part of the social network! [Learn more](https://blog.joinmastodon.org/2018/06/why-activitypub-is-the-future/)
### Real-time, chronological timeline updates
Updates of people you're following appear in real-time in the UI via WebSockets. There's a firehose view as well!
### Media attachments like images and short videos
Upload and view images and WebM/MP4 videos attached to the updates. Videos with no audio track are treated like GIFs; normal videos loop continuously!
### Safety and moderation tools
Mastodon includes private posts, locked accounts, phrase filtering, muting, blocking, and all sorts of other features, along with a reporting and moderation system. [Learn more](https://blog.joinmastodon.org/2018/07/cage-the-mastodon/)
### OAuth2 and a straightforward REST API
Mastodon acts as an OAuth2 provider, so 3rd party apps can use the REST and Streaming APIs. This results in a rich app ecosystem with a lot of choices!
## Deployment
### Tech stack
- **Ruby on Rails** powers the REST API and other web pages
- **React.js** and Redux are used for the dynamic parts of the interface
The repository includes deployment configurations for **Docker and docker-compose** as well as specific platforms like **Heroku**, **Scalingo**, and **Nanobox**. For Helm charts, reference the [mastodon/chart repository](https://github.com/mastodon/chart). The [**standalone** installation guide](https://docs.joinmastodon.org/admin/install/) is available in the documentation.
## Development
### Vagrant
A **Vagrant** configuration is included for development purposes. To use it, complete the following steps:
- Install Vagrant and Virtualbox
- Install the `vagrant-hostsupdater` plugin: `vagrant plugin install vagrant-hostsupdater`
- Run `vagrant up`
- Run `vagrant ssh -c "cd /vagrant && bin/dev"`
- Open `http://mastodon.local` in your browser
### MacOS
To set up **MacOS** for native development, complete the following steps:
- Use a Ruby version manager to install the specified version from `.ruby-version`
- Run `brew install postgresql@14 redis imagemagick libidn` to install required dependencies
- Navigate to Mastodon's root directory and run `brew install nvm` then `nvm use` to use the version from `.nvmrc`
- Run `corepack enable && corepack prepare`
- Run `bundle exec rails db:setup` (optionally prepend `RAILS_ENV=development` to target the dev environment)
- Finally, run `bin/dev` which will launch the local services via `overmind` (if installed) or `foreman`
### Docker
For development with **Docker**, complete the following steps:
- Install Docker Desktop
- Run `docker compose -f .devcontainer/docker-compose.yml up -d`
- Run `docker compose -f .devcontainer/docker-compose.yml exec app .devcontainer/post-create.sh`
- Finally, run `docker compose -f .devcontainer/docker-compose.yml exec app bin/dev`
If you are using an IDE with [support for the Development Container specification](https://containers.dev/supporting), it will run the above `docker compose` commands automatically. For **Visual Studio Code** this requires the [Dev Container extension](https://containers.dev/supporting#dev-containers).
### GitHub Codespaces
To get you coding in just a few minutes, GitHub Codespaces provides a web-based version of Visual Studio Code and a cloud-hosted development environment fully configured with the software needed for this project..
- Click this button to create a new codespace:<br>
[](https://github.com/codespaces/new?hide_repo_select=true&ref=main&repo=52281283&devcontainer_path=.devcontainer%2Fcodespaces%2Fdevcontainer.json)
- Wait for the environment to build. This will take a few minutes.
- When the editor is ready, run `bin/dev` in the terminal.
- After a few seconds, a popup will appear with a button labeled _Open in Browser_. This will open Mastodon.
- On the _Ports_ tab, right click on the “stream” row and select _Port visibility_ → _Public_.
## Contributing
Mastodon is **free, open-source software** licensed under **AGPLv3**.
You can open issues for bugs you've found or features you think are missing. You can also submit pull requests to this repository or submit translations using Crowdin. To get started, take a look at [CONTRIBUTING.md](CONTRIBUTING.md). If your contributions are accepted into Mastodon, you can request to be paid through [our OpenCollective](https://opencollective.com/mastodon).
**IRC channel**: #mastodon on irc.libera.chat
## License
Copyright (C) 2016-2024 Eugen Rochko & other Mastodon contributors (see [AUTHORS.md](AUTHORS.md))
This program is free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU Affero General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation, either version 3 of the License, or (at your option) any later version.
This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU Affero General Public License for more details.
You should have received a copy of the GNU Affero General Public License along with this program. If not, see <https://www.gnu.org/licenses/>.
