Mastodon
Social Networking PlatformsBerlin, Germany11-50 Employees
Mastodon operates as a free, open-source social networking platform built on a federated model, enabling users to follow friends and discover new connections across independently run servers. Content can be published in various forms, including links, images, text, and video, and the network is designed so users on one server can communicate with users on other servers, including systems that implement the same standard. The organization is based in Berlin, Germany, and has a small to mid-sized team. In the broader social networking platforms sector, Mastodon positions itself as a decentralized, federated alternative to centralized platforms. In April 2026, Mastodon announced a collaboration with the Social Web Foundation to advance private-messaging privacy through end-to-end encrypted messaging extensions within the federated ecosystem.