Hometown vs snac
A side-by-side comparison of two self-hosted social networks options — licensing, setup difficulty, resource needs, and what each one replaces.
| Feature | Hometown | snac |
|---|---|---|
| Deploy effort | Under-an-hour setup | Read-the-docs project |
| Category | Social Networks | Social Networks |
| License | AGPL-3.0 | MIT |
| Language | Ruby | C |
| Setup difficulty | Hard | Medium |
| Min. RAM | 2,048 MB | 64 MB |
| Deployment | docker, bare-metal | binary, source |
| GitHub stars | ★ 823 | ★ 900 |
| First released | 2019 | 2022 |
| Replaces | Twitter, Mastodon | Twitter, Mastodon |
What are Hometown and snac?
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
snac
snac is a minimalist, lightweight ActivityPub instance server written in C with very low resource requirements. It implements the core fediverse features without a database or heavy runtime.
- Tiny C implementation
- No database needed
- ActivityPub federation
- Runs on minimal hardware
Hometown vs snac: key differences
Hometown is written in Ruby, while snac is built with C. Licensing differs — AGPL-3.0 for Hometown versus MIT for snac. Snac is the lighter option, starting around 64 MB of RAM against 2,048 MB for Hometown. Hometown is the more established project (first released 2019), while snac arrived in 2022. Hometown lists first-class Docker deployment; snac 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 snac if…
- Released under the MIT license
- Written in C
- Tiny footprint — runs in 64 MB RAM
Frequently asked questions
Is Hometown or snac better?
snac 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 snac free and open-source?
Yes. Hometown is licensed under AGPL-3.0 and snac under MIT. Both can be self-hosted at no software cost.
Can I run Hometown and snac with Docker?
Hometown: yes. snac: check the project docs for container support.
Which is lighter on resources, Hometown or snac?
snac has the smaller minimum footprint at 64 MB of RAM, compared to about 2,048 MB for Hometown. Real-world usage depends on library size, user count, and enabled features.