Glitch-soc vs Streams
A side-by-side comparison of two self-hosted social networks options — licensing, setup difficulty, resource needs, and what each one replaces.
| Feature | Glitch-soc | Streams |
|---|---|---|
| Deploy effort | Under-an-hour setup | Under-an-hour setup |
| Category | Social Networks | Social Networks |
| License | AGPL-3.0 | MIT |
| Language | Ruby | PHP |
| Setup difficulty | Hard | Hard |
| Min. RAM | 2,048 MB | 1,024 MB |
| Deployment | docker, bare-metal | docker, bare-metal |
| GitHub stars | ★ 803 | ★ 100 |
| First released | 2017 | 2021 |
| Replaces | Twitter, Mastodon | Facebook, Mastodon |
What are Glitch-soc and Streams?
Glitch-soc
Glitch-soc is a community-maintained fork of Mastodon that adds experimental features and customization options ahead of upstream. It federates fully with the rest of the fediverse over ActivityPub.
- Extra customization options
- Experimental features
- Full fediverse federation
- Themeable interface
Streams
Streams is a free, decentralized social communication server that supports nomadic identity, letting accounts move and clone between instances. It federates with the fediverse and offers fine-grained permissions.
- Nomadic identity
- Account cloning across servers
- Fediverse federation
- Granular permissions
Glitch-soc vs Streams: key differences
Glitch-soc is written in Ruby, while Streams is built with PHP. Licensing differs — AGPL-3.0 for Glitch-soc versus MIT for Streams. Streams is the lighter option, starting around 1,024 MB of RAM against 2,048 MB for Glitch-soc. Glitch-soc is the more established project (first released 2017), while Streams arrived in 2021. Glitch-soc has the considerably larger community, at 803 GitHub stars versus 100.
Why pick each one
Choose Glitch-soc if…
- Released under the AGPL-3.0 license
- First-class Docker support for quick deployment
- Written in Ruby
Choose Streams if…
- Released under the MIT license
- First-class Docker support for quick deployment
- Written in PHP
Frequently asked questions
Is Glitch-soc or Streams better?
Neither is universally better. Glitch-soc has the larger community; both share a hard setup difficulty, so the decision comes down to features and licensing.
Are Glitch-soc and Streams free and open-source?
Yes. Glitch-soc is licensed under AGPL-3.0 and Streams under MIT. Both can be self-hosted at no software cost.
Can I run Glitch-soc and Streams with Docker?
Glitch-soc: yes. Streams: yes.
Which is lighter on resources, Glitch-soc or Streams?
Streams has the smaller minimum footprint at 1,024 MB of RAM, compared to about 2,048 MB for Glitch-soc. Real-world usage depends on library size, user count, and enabled features.