Glitch-soc 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 | Glitch-soc | Takahe |
|---|---|---|
| Deploy effort | Under-an-hour setup | Under-an-hour setup |
| Health score | 81 · 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 | 2,048 MB | 1,024 MB |
| Deployment | docker, bare-metal | docker, bare-metal |
| GitHub stars | ★ 803 | ★ 1,172 |
| First released | 2017 | 2022 |
| Replaces | Twitter, Mastodon | Twitter, Mastodon |
What are Glitch-soc and Takahe?
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
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
Glitch-soc vs Takahe: key differences
Glitch-soc is written in Ruby, while Takahe is built with Python. Licensing differs — AGPL-3.0 for Glitch-soc versus BSD-3-Clause for Takahe. Takahe 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 Takahe arrived in 2022.
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 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 Glitch-soc or Takahe better?
Takahe is the stronger all-round pick: it has both the larger community and the simpler medium setup. Consider Glitch-soc if its specific feature set fits your needs better.
Are Glitch-soc and Takahe free and open-source?
Yes. Glitch-soc is licensed under AGPL-3.0 and Takahe under BSD-3-Clause. Both can be self-hosted at no software cost.
Can I run Glitch-soc and Takahe with Docker?
Glitch-soc: yes. Takahe: yes.
Which is lighter on resources, Glitch-soc or Takahe?
Takahe 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.