Mastodon
Where conversations happen
How much does Mastodon cost?
Prices are current as of 8 Oct 2026.
Mastodon has no in-app products on record in the United States.
10+ alternatives to Mastodon
| Mastodon |   mewe: The Safe Network |   Slowly: Make Global Friends |   GETTR - A Marketplace of Ideas |   Bluesky Social |   Ivory for Mastodon by Tapbots |   VERO |   Farcaster |   Spill-App |   Voyager for Lemmy |   Parler | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Rating / 5 | 4.5 | 4.5 | 4.7 | 4.4 | 3.9 | 4.8 | 4.0 | 4.0 | 4.5 | 4.8 | 3.8 |
| Reviews | 39K | 465K | 66K | 43K | 27K | 8.6K | 5.8K | 4.2K | 1.8K | 607 | 210 |
| Released | 2021 | 2014 | 2017 | 2021 | 2023 | 2023 | 2015 | 2023 | 2023 | 2023 | 2018 |
| Monthly price | — | $3.99 | $7.99 | — | — | $1.99 | $4.99 | — | — | — | — |
| Annual price | — | $69.99 | $42.99 | — | — | $14.99 | — | — | — | — | — |
| One-time price | — | $1.99 | $2.99 | — | — | — | — | $9.00 | — | — | — |
The going rate for each plan in United States, in its own currency, shaded from the cheapest price on the row to the dearest. Plans fewer than four in ten of the priced apps sell are left out.
Mastodon reviews
4.5 out of 5, based on 38,576 reviews.
What people like
- Feels like decentralized email for posts
- Community is friendly and less toxic
- Works well on iPad screens
What they complain about
- Scrolling feels janky and unresponsive
- Home button behavior is confusing
- App freezes and loads slowly
Great
Great community and one that I definitely recommend. I wish there was an option to change the icon back to the pre liquid glass look.
apple butted in with a new password generator and glitched out my account as i was making it.
now i have a account with you i can’t access somewhere in the void
Good client with very few bugs
Overall this is a solid mastodon client, which implements all the features that I need very well. I've been using it for quite some time and it's nice and reliable. One issue I will raise is that there is a tendency for the feed to get visually shifted around/jumpy , sometimes when I open a piece of media and then close it, the active area of the app jumps away from what I was looking at. There are also some issues scrolling backwards, scrolling back up to look at something that I was looking at earlier. The client will jump and skip, I'm not sure what's causing that, but I will say it's a bit frustrating as it seems to happen often. Keep up the great work. with a few more tweaks this app will be rock solid .
Not ready for prime time
Buggy, slow, “too many requests” errors unfortunately.
It’s alright
No easy/clear way to switch between servers without logging in and out. I’d prefer something like discord where you can see your profiles and also be logged into them all potentially
Great Decentralized Social Media
Its great
Dead platform
My favorite Twitter contender, but sadly there’s just no activity. Many posts just fail to load at all. They need to impose a character limit to stop all the 18-page podcast synopses. Scrolling is a nightmare. But really there’s no point without actual active users.
Decent
I wish posting on instances was more intuitive. Like I don’t get the file sharing to post videos thing still so I tend to not. Also I wish there was a button for emojis like Tusky.
Getting a lot of timeouts
Had to install Ice Cubes to avoid them
The local feed disappeared
I liked having the option to switch feeds, but can no longer find this.
Email if it was Twitter
It’s funny to think what email would look like if it was made today. Instead of multiple email providers that all coexist on the same network, it would be a singular giant corporation. That single corporation gets to decide how emails are sent, who they’re sent to, and what can be in them. It’s a miracle that email isn’t like this, but that’s what many platforms do. Mastodon is doing what email does, but for micro blogging.
"Privacy"
"Privacy"
I like the minimalist set up
Please where do I find groups and friends
Search results suck
Can someone explain to me what is the logic of having search results come up on a small floating window. I’m already on a mobile device of a small screen, why would you use an even a smaller window for results? Just use the whole damn screen.
Change that slogan.
What the hell? That’s as bad as Jerry Smith’s “Hungry for Apples?” Lol. Mastodon: “let’s talk” Mastodon: “Huddle Up!” Mastodon: “Discussion Decentralized” Mastodon: “Toot your Horn” No Ai was used on this pitch. Aside from that it’s pretty good.
Great app.
Great app.
Unusable on 18.7.x
Client is unusable on 18.7.x. Can’t unfollow people. Scrolls all over the place when looking at message attachments. Stop trying to be cute with the UI and just make sure things are working.
Needs some polish
I’m running into a lot of UX glitches and errors. Like scrolling on profile page is broken. The header and feed scroll independently creating a really strange experience. No hate, I’m honestly just confused. I wouldn’t expect the official mastodon client to ship in this state.
HTTP 503 errors!
Why so many? Can't use its iOS app in my updated iPhone 17!
It’s nice that it exist
I wish they’d focus on things working well before moving on. The interface is a bit janky, lots of visual bugs and the profile page often locks up or doesn’t read the swipe correctly.
Perfection
I hope everyone use it
Never turn your phone sideways
A long standing bug that’s been there for years is that if you don’t keep your phone perfectly vertical, it tries and fails to rotate causing the entire app to become unusable until you force close the app. I have no idea why he doesn’t just deactivate rotation in the app. That feature has never worked.
Oct 4 update broke home button and last position, Oct 23 update fixed home button
After October 4 update the home button no longer jumps to top of feed and the app now auto loads to top of feed instead of last position. 2/5 until fixed. October 23 update “restored” Home button functionality with double tap, but the app still does not load on last position. If you close the app (not minimize/background), then next time you open it goes back to top of feed. This is annoying when trying to catch up on content but you start at the end of the conversations. 3/5 until this is fixed. December 3 most of my concerns are addressed, back to 4/5
Feature regression hampers use
Recent updates make the app slightly prettier, but you can no longer long-press media to get usable sharing (like copying an image). The built-in sharing seems buggy (sharing a picture shares its full URL and Alt text, but not the image‽). When the cache of posts runs dry, the extremely long drag-and-hold to reload is buggy and inconsistent. Hoping developers will read and act on feedback here, as there does not seem to be any way to submit through the app.
Still can’t get to top of feed
I’ve enjoyed seeing the iOS app mature over the last three years or so, but am a bit disappointed we still can’t get to a functioning home button. This was a single click to get to top of feed, then a double click. Now I guess we scroll until we find it…
Best out of all social media’s
Pretty small user base but that makes for less toxicity and more entertaining content!
Can’t create an account
Just useless can’t even create a account it doesn’t work
Timeline jumps are disorienting
A minor gripe... the iOS Mastodon client tosses you up or down the timeline when you go back to it after reading the replies to a post. Maybe it is treating your scrolls down the individual post view as scrolls up or down the timeline itself...? Either way it is disorienting when returning to the timeline from an individual post.
Mastodon is great, the app isn't
First off, the community on Mastodon is wonderful, and i'm very happy to be on the platform. That being said, this app is very laggy and broken at times. The easiest example is viewing profiles. There is something about the profile banner that lags my phone, and makes it hard to scroll anywhere past the first toot.
Not bad but no one is on
It’s not a bad app but literally no one is there so impossible to find someone posting anything I’m interested in
Enjoyable
Mastodon , the network, is a very good way to communicate with others but this app is a great way to connect. Ivory is another option which is great but this is effectively as good without subscriptions.
Just awful slow buggy app
This app is slow, does not refresh the timeline or notifications promptly. Notifications appear in iOS but are missing from in the app itself. It has frustrating basic problems with text entry. Does not allow cut and paste. Loses what you were writing if you switch to another app and back, and on and on. This is like somebody's first iOS app, it is terrible. Mastodon on iOS should just be a website and not need this terrible app if they managed the basic column layout better. Mastodon management, maybe just do that and eliminate the team producing this terrible app.
Getting there
Latest update is better but still issues with scrolling on profiles
Was fine before update
Main search page (“top”) only shows 20 or so posts. My personalized feed is worse and my engagement is down. No notifications anymore.
add list pls
add list pls
Great idea
I joined Mastodon after getting a negative experience on another ‘social media’ site that appeared to want to censor discussion. My experience on this app is 100% positive.
Totally broken in iOS 26
It was good app. I used it every day. After installing iOS 26, it hardly works. Slow, empty screens after reloud etc. I switched to web app that works just fine. It seemd that development of this app stopped.
Little help over here?
I’ve been having a whole lot of trouble for the past few weeks now trying to create a profile/ account on one of the servers. I’ve received email after email verifying and creating my account over and over again yet every time when it says I’m verified it says there’s some thing wrong or it’s invalid or doesn’t exist. I do understand verification on baraag takes some time but I’ve been having to repeat the process a paining amount and number of times now. Could I get a little help or assistance on what’s going on over here?
Disappointing quality
Yes, Mastodon is ad-free and FOSS and all that, but even within the limitations those things imply, the quality of the iOS client is quite disappointing. Scrolling, transitions, and basic navigation are janky or even simply don’t work. Media uploads frequently don’t complete (this may be server-specific; I use mastodon.social). The web experience isn’t amazing but it’s at least competent, and is miles less frustrating than this app.
Buttons on the new update are a nightmare to use
Big fan of the platform, I use the app every day, but the latest version re-jigged the active areas for boost, favorite, and reply, so now when I want to interact with a post, 95 times out of 100, it will just open the post instead. And the cycle repeats within the post itself, to I'm not entirely sure what arbitrary depth. Infuriating. I don't want to leave a bad rating for the app overall, but the latest version is an interactivity nightmare.
Works well on iPad
One of the few social media apps that work’s well on iPad, using the full screen and not running an iPhone app enlarged.
Mastodon is great. The iOS app not so much.
Mastodon is a nice and actually decentralized social media where the goal isn’t to chase clout or become an influence, the official app however is pretty awful. New app updates broke position holds between app sessions so it constantly updates you to the newest toots. And you have to scroll back to see where you were last. Constantly get “pages” that just stop scrolling as though frozen. Including on local mastodon server users. Which coupled with the move to top, means that sometimes you can’t follow a conversation or thread any longer.
Sizing for larger text would could be changed.
Love the app, but do find some things fairly crammed together while using larger screen text on a pro max. Specifically boost icon and text are a little too close to username and avatar imo.
Basic, often jenky
It will do what it needs to (show you posts), but it’s often a buggy app. The latest update frequently freezes, and the Home button no longer does anything to refresh the feed. And right now, all I can see is the header info for a post (account, profile pic) but the posts don’t appear and I can’t tap on them to open them. My own post feed only shows the last post I made. I checked for updates, but nothing. It’s not usually quite this buggy but it’s never been the smoothest even in the best instances.
Where are the pinned toots?
Why are pinned toots not pinned in this app?
Wonderfully unique
I have thoroughly enjoyed the experience of Mastodon. I’m a regular computer/phone user and I have found the transition to mastodon to be extremely successful. I’ve really enjoyed finding unique and interesting people who are passing on knowledge and their experiences everyday. The Beige instance is a celebration of the mundane, the social instance is a casual hangout for all. There is something for everyone there.
Broken
Didn't get no email verification or anything.....disappointed
Video playback nonfunctional
Several weeks ago, playback of video completely stopped. No visual, no audio, no indication that anything is loading. Everything works in a browser, but is easier to view posts using the app on my phone.
Bug report
Uh, this latest version does not seem to be an upgrade. User photos take up a pretty big column leaving a ton of white space on the left. And the boost confirmation setting is no longer honored. Update: okay scrolling by tapping the icon is broken too. Lowering rating for every bug introduced that could be tested. Let me know if you meed a dev/tester.
Mostly there.
Doesn’t load user timeline. 😾
Mastodon FAQ
- Is Mastodon free?
- Yes. The app is free, in all 174 countries it sells in, and it sells nothing inside it.
- Does Mastodon have a free trial?
- No. None of its offers (US) come with a free trial.
- What are the best alternatives to Mastodon?
- mewe: The Safe Network (4.5 from 464,831 reviews, premium from $1.99), Slowly: Make Global Friends (4.7 from 66,285 reviews, premium from $0.99) and GETTR - A Marketplace of Ideas (4.4 from 42,614 reviews).
Mastodon download
Last updated 1 month ago.
Mastodon sells in 174 countries. It was released 5 years and 2 months ago, on 30 Jul 2021. It holds a 4.5 rating from 38,576 reviews.
Supports 45 languages: English, Albanian, Arabic, Aragonese, Armenian, Basque, Belarusian, Burmese, Catalan, Czech, Danish, Dutch, Estonian, Finnish, French, Scottish Gaelic, Galician, German, Greek, Hebrew, Hindi, Hungarian, Icelandic, Indonesian, Irish, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Kurdish, Latvian, Lithuanian, Polish, Portuguese, Romanian, Russian, Chinese, Sinhala, Slovenian, Spanish, Swedish, Thai, Turkish, Ukrainian, Vietnamese, Welsh.
How much does Mastodon make?
Third-party estimates for the last 30 days, worldwide — not the store's own figures, which Apple publishes for nobody.