⚡ Decentralized Social Media Platforms

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.

Statistics based on 3.8M+ analyzed websites. About this data

⭐ 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 1.1%, followed by Mastodon with 0.4% and Pixelfed with 0.006%.

Bluesky 1.1%
Mastodon 0.4%
Pixelfed 0.006%
MeWe 0.005%
Nostr 0.004%
Lemmy 0.004%
Diaspora 0.002%

✨ 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	1.1%
2	Mastodon Berlin, Germany A decentralized social network running on independent servers and powered by Mastodon open-source software. Free	0.4%
3	Pixelfed A decentralized social network service for photo sharing powered by Pixelfed open-source software. Free	0.006%
4	MeWe Culver City, California, United States A social networking service that positions itself as a privacy-first, decentralized alternative to mainstream platforms and offers an algorithm-free chronological feed without advertising or behavioral targeting. Free$4.99/month	0.005%
5	Nostr An open protocol that enables global, decentralized, and censorship-resistant social media. Free	0.004%
6	Lemmy A decentralized social link aggregator platform running on independent servers and powered by the open-source Lemmy software. Free	0.004%
7	Diaspora A nonprofit, user-owned, distributed social network based on Diaspora open-source software. Free	0.002%

🗃️ About This Data

We evaluate the popularity of technologies based on the number of websites where we detect their usage.
Technologies without a detectable web footprint, and those we do not track, are not reflected in the calculated market share.
This report is based on the analysis of 3,816,780 websites.
We currently track the presence of 88 social media platforms across the web.
Statistics were last calculated on September 19, 2026.
For more details, see our methodology and disclaimer.