Honk vs Takahe
A side-by-side comparison of two self-hosted social networks options — licensing, setup difficulty, resource needs, and what each one replaces.
Not the right match-up?
| Feature | Honk | Takahe |
|---|---|---|
| Category | Social Networks | Social Networks |
| License | ISC | BSD-3-Clause |
| Language | Go | Python |
| Setup difficulty | Medium | Medium |
| Min. RAM | 128 MB | 1,024 MB |
| Deployment | binary, source | docker, bare-metal |
| GitHub stars | ★ 400 | ★ 1,174 |
| First released | 2019 | 2022 |
| Replaces | Twitter, Mastodon | Twitter, Mastodon |
Why pick each one
Choose Honk if…
- Released under the ISC license
- Written in Go
- Tiny footprint — runs in 128 MB RAM
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 Honk or Takahe better?
Neither is universally better. Takahe has the larger community; both share a medium setup difficulty, so the decision comes down to features and licensing.
Are Honk and Takahe free and open-source?
Yes. Honk is licensed under ISC and Takahe under BSD-3-Clause. Both can be self-hosted at no software cost.
Can I run Honk and Takahe with Docker?
Honk: check the project docs for container support. Takahe: yes.