diaspora* vs Takahe
A side-by-side comparison of two self-hosted social networks options — licensing, setup difficulty, resource needs, and what each one replaces.
| Feature | diaspora* | Takahe |
|---|---|---|
| Deploy effort | Under-an-hour setup | Under-an-hour setup |
| Health score | 89 · Excellent | 18 · At risk |
| Category | Social Networks | Social Networks |
| License | AGPL-3.0 | BSD-3-Clause |
| Language | Ruby | Python |
| Setup difficulty | Hard | Medium |
| Min. RAM | 1,024 MB | 1,024 MB |
| Deployment | docker, bare-metal, source | docker, bare-metal |
| GitHub stars | ★ 13,649 | ★ 1,172 |
| First released | 2010 | 2022 |
| Replaces | Facebook, Twitter | Twitter, Mastodon |
What are diaspora* and Takahe?
diaspora*
diaspora* is a free, open-source, privacy-aware decentralized social network. It is organized into independently operated pods that federate, giving users ownership of their data.
- Federated pod network
- Aspects for sharing control
- Hashtag-based discovery
- Data ownership focus
Takahe
Takahe is an ActivityPub server that can host multiple domains and identities from a single deployment. It is designed for those who want to run several fediverse personas without separate installations.
- Multi-domain hosting
- Multiple identities per user
- Stateless workers
- ActivityPub federation
diaspora* vs Takahe: key differences
Diaspora* is written in Ruby, while Takahe is built with Python. Licensing differs — AGPL-3.0 for diaspora* versus BSD-3-Clause for Takahe. Diaspora* is the more established project (first released 2010), while Takahe arrived in 2022. Diaspora* has the considerably larger community, at 13,649 GitHub stars versus 1,172.
Why pick each one
Choose diaspora* if…
- Strong privacy ethos
- Established network
Watch out for
- Limited fediverse interoperability
- Slower development
Choose Takahe if…
- Released under the BSD-3-Clause license
- First-class Docker support for quick deployment
- Active community (1.2k GitHub stars)
- Written in Python
Frequently asked questions
Is diaspora* or Takahe better?
Neither is universally better. diaspora* has the larger community, while Takahe is simpler to set up (medium difficulty). Choose based on the comparison table above and your own setup.
Are diaspora* and Takahe free and open-source?
Yes. diaspora* is licensed under AGPL-3.0 and Takahe under BSD-3-Clause. Both can be self-hosted at no software cost.
Can I run diaspora* and Takahe with Docker?
diaspora*: yes. Takahe: yes.