Invidious
Social NetworksAlternative front-end to YouTube
Replaces YouTube
Best Cross-Platform Social Networks for self-hosting
The 17 best Cross-Platform social networks you can self-host, ranked by community traction.
Piped
Social NetworksAlternative front-end for YouTube
Replaces YouTube
Elk
Social NetworksProgressive web client for Mastodon and Pleroma
Replaces Twitter app
Redlib
Social NetworksAn alternative private front-end to Reddit, with its origins
Phanpy
Social NetworksMinimalistic opinionated Fediverse ⁂ web client
Replaces Bluesky, Mastodon
OSSN
Social NetworksSocial networking software that allows you to make a social networking
Soapbox
Social NetworksCustomizable fediverse web front-end
Replaces Twitter app
Loops
Social NetworksFederated short video sharing platform
Replaces Instagram, TikTok
Libremdb
Social NetworksFree & open source IMDb front-end
Replaces IMDb
Enafore
Social NetworksFediverse client with better support for Akkoma, glitch-soc
Replaces Elk, Masto-FE
Khatru Pyramid
Social NetworksNostr invite relay
Replaces Mastodon, Twitter
Bloat
Social NetworksWeb client for Pleroma, Mitra and other Fediverse connected apps
Forte
Social Networksopen source ActivityPub/fediverse server
Replaces Facebook, Threads
GoToSocial
Social NetworksFast ActivityPub social network server
Replaces Akkoma, Bluesky
Masto-FE (🦥 flavour)
Social NetworksMastodon-like interface for GoToSocial, based on IceShrimp's Masto-FE
Replaces Elk, Phanpy
yarn.social
Social NetworksSelf-Hosted, Twitter™-like Decentralised micro-logging platform
AsmBB
Social NetworksFast, SQLite-powered forum engine written in ASM
No apps match these filters.
At a glance
| App | Deploy effort | Difficulty | Min. RAM | License | ★ Stars |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Invidious | Read-the-docs project | Medium | 50 MB | GPL-3.0-only | 25,439 |
| Piped | Read-the-docs project | Easy | 50 MB | AGPL-3.0-or-later | 10,282 |
| Elk | Read-the-docs project | Easy | 64 MB | MIT | 6,031 |
| Redlib | Read-the-docs project | Medium | 512 MB | AGPL-3.0 | 3,844 |
| Phanpy | Read-the-docs project | Easy | 100 MB | MIT | 1,501 |
| OSSN | Read-the-docs project | Medium | 512 MB | CAL-1.0 | 1,251 |
| Soapbox | Read-the-docs project | Medium | 128 MB | AGPL-3.0 | 700 |
| Loops | Read-the-docs project | Medium | 350 MB | AGPL-3.0-or-later | 457 |
| Libremdb | Read-the-docs project | Easy | 50 MB | AGPL-3.0 | 438 |
| Enafore | Read-the-docs project | Medium | 100 MB | AGPL-3.0-only | 94 |
Quick picks
- Most adopted: Invidious (25,439 GitHub stars).
- Lightest footprint: Invidious (from 50 MB RAM, against 512 MB for the heaviest here).
- Licensing: 4 of 17 use AGPL-3.0; check the rest individually if you plan to modify and redistribute.
Every option here is open-source and self-hostable, tagged Cross-Platform within the social networks category. Deploy effort is graded from published container recipes, not vendor claims — see the methodology.