⚡ Decentralized Social Media

Decentralized social media platforms are networks built on distributed or federated architectures, where content and user accounts are hosted across multiple independent servers rather than a single central service.

They typically feature open protocols, interoperability between instances, greater user control over data and moderation policies, and reduced reliance on a single provider compared to centralized social networks.

⭐ Most Popular in 2026

The following chart shows the leading decentralized social media platforms in 2026, based on market share.

The most popular is Bluesky with a share of 0.8%, followed by Mastodon with 0.4% and MeWe with 0.006%.

Bluesky 0.8%
Mastodon 0.4%
MeWe 0.006%
Pixelfed 0.006%
Lemmy 0.004%
Nostr 0.004%
Diaspora 0.003%

🚀 Country Highlights

Here is a list of platforms that are especially popular in certain countries.
Differences between global and country rankings are shown in parentheses.

Bluesky is #7 in France ^(-8)

✨ Best Decentralized Social Media Platforms

Below is a more detailed list of 7 decentralized social media platforms we detect, ranked by their market share.

Available filters: Bookish Decentralized Photo Video

Rank	Name	Market share
1	Bluesky Seattle, Washington, United States A social network designed to operate without control by a single company, built as a reference implementation of the AT Protocol for distributed social networks. Free	0.8%
2	Mastodon Berlin, Germany A decentralized social network running on independent servers and powered by Mastodon open source software. Free	0.4%
3	MeWe Culver City, California, United States A privacy-first, decentralized social network with no ads, no targeting, and no news feed manipulation. Free$4.99/month	0.006%
4	Pixelfed A decentralized open-source social network service for photo sharing. Free	0.006%
5	Lemmy A decentralized social link aggregator platform running on independent servers and powered by the open-source Lemmy software. Free	0.004%
6	Nostr An open protocol that enables global, decentralized, and censorship-resistant social media. Free	0.004%
7	Diaspora A nonprofit, user-owned, distributed social network based on Diaspora open source software. Free	0.003%

Data is based on the analysis of 3,320,618 websites.
Statistics were last calculated on March 21, 2026.
For details, see our methodology and disclaimer.