Hometown vs pump.io
A side-by-side comparison of two self-hosted social networks options — licensing, setup difficulty, resource needs, and what each one replaces.
| Feature | Hometown | pump.io |
|---|---|---|
| Deploy effort | Under-an-hour setup | Read-the-docs project |
| Health score | 81 · Excellent | 48 · Fair |
| Category | Social Networks | Social Networks |
| License | AGPL-3.0 | Apache-2.0 |
| Language | Ruby | JavaScript |
| Setup difficulty | Hard | Medium |
| Min. RAM | 2,048 MB | 256 MB |
| Deployment | docker, bare-metal | bare-metal, source |
| GitHub stars | ★ 823 | ★ 2,237 |
| First released | 2019 | 2013 |
| Replaces | Twitter, Mastodon |
What are Hometown and pump.io?
Hometown
Hometown is a friendly fork of Mastodon that adds local-only posting, full-text content support, and other community-oriented features. It is aimed at small, close-knit fediverse instances.
- Local-only posts
- Full-text content
- Mastodon compatibility
- Small-community focus
pump.io
pump.io is a stream server that lets users post activities to their followers and to the web, implementing the Activity Streams format. It can be self-hosted as a personal social networking node.
- Activity Streams social server
- Personal social networking node
- Federation support
Hometown vs pump.io: key differences
Hometown is written in Ruby, while pump.io is built with JavaScript. Licensing differs — AGPL-3.0 for Hometown versus Apache-2.0 for pump.io. Pump.io is the lighter option, starting around 256 MB of RAM against 2,048 MB for Hometown. Pump.io is the more established project (first released 2013), while Hometown arrived in 2019. Pump.io has the considerably larger community, at 2,237 GitHub stars versus 823. Hometown lists first-class Docker deployment; pump.io does not.
Why pick each one
Choose Hometown if…
- Released under the AGPL-3.0 license
- First-class Docker support for quick deployment
- Written in Ruby
Choose pump.io if…
- Released under the Apache-2.0 license
- Active community (2.2k GitHub stars)
- Written in JavaScript
- Tiny footprint — runs in 256 MB RAM
Frequently asked questions
Is Hometown or pump.io better?
pump.io is the stronger all-round pick: it has both the larger community and the simpler medium setup. Consider Hometown if its specific feature set fits your needs better.
Are Hometown and pump.io free and open-source?
Yes. Hometown is licensed under AGPL-3.0 and pump.io under Apache-2.0. Both can be self-hosted at no software cost.
Can I run Hometown and pump.io with Docker?
Hometown: yes. pump.io: check the project docs for container support.
Which is lighter on resources, Hometown or pump.io?
pump.io has the smaller minimum footprint at 256 MB of RAM, compared to about 2,048 MB for Hometown. Real-world usage depends on library size, user count, and enabled features.