VERDICT
A lightweight fediverse server - pleroma.social
Depends. Good choice if you're technical and want your own federated social server on cheap hardware — it's free and light. Skip it if you want a supported product; join an existing Mastodon or Pleroma instance instead.
Medium. Based on 14 public sources reviewed.
$0
Self-hosted
medium
Free download, but hosting, updates, and moderation are entirely on you
medium
No vendor support or SLA; community GitLab issue tracking only
medium
Official site lacks a security page; you must track releases yourself
low
Frontend choice adds complexity — official FE is 'highly customizable', Soapbox is simpler
Value for money: 5/5
Rating
$0
Starting price
8
Sources
Analyzed
$0
No known vulnerabilities found in the sources reviewed.
Self-hosters consistently describe Pleroma as a lighter, low-hardware Mastodon alternative.
“Pleroma is the best ActivityPub software there is for general Twitter ...”
“It is a lighter alternative to Mastodon, and not everyone wants to use Mastodon.”
“Pleroma is a lightweight, self-hosted ActivityPub social server, a Mastodon alternative that runs well on low-power hardware.”
Compare Pleroma with each alternative.
Bigger community and polish; heavier to self-host
Feature-rich federated microblogging alternative
Older lightweight fediverse server, free software
Pleroma vs GNU SocialSkip hosting; use an existing featured server instead
Pleroma vs Join an existing instanceBased on 14 public sources reviewed.
Free, lightweight Mastodon alternative you self-host. Great for tinkerers; wrong if you want plug-and-play social networking.
Based on 14 public sources reviewed.
Anonymous. You can change your vote.
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