HootBoard vs Mastodon
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
HootBoard
Stay updated and contribute to your organization's digital bulletin board. Post announcements, events, and jobs on the go, and receive real-time notifications. Engage in discussions and manage content easily.
- Post updates on the go
- Receive push notifications
- View and add events to calendar
- Engage with comments and questions
- Filter content with collections
- Admin content review and management
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Introducing the HootBoard App. This is the place to stay up to date and to contribute to your organization's HootBoard. This app is part of the comprehensive bulletin board platform that works seamlessly across web, mobile, interactive kiosks and digital signage. Who is this app for? The app is designed for users who already have an account or are looking to join their organization's HootBoard. HootBoard is primarily used by workplaces where employees don't sit at a desk all day, universities, schools, residential communities and others to share critical announcements, events, notices, jobs and much more. Use HootBoard to: - Post hoots on the go. If your organization is using our digital signage or kiosks products, your displays will update like magic. - Receive push notifications of new activity on your board so you never miss a beat. - View all the hoots on your board. If it's an event you can add it right to your calendar. - Ask questions, have conversations and leave comments on hoots. - Easily filter through content on your board using collections. - Admins can get stuff done on the go too. Review and approve hoots with the tap of a button. For existing hoots, they can manage various settings like visibility, pinning, collections and more. Happy hooting!
Mastodon
Connect with others on a decentralized social network. Share posts, images, and videos in chronological order without algorithms or ads. Discover new content and participate in conversations across the fediverse.
- Chronological feed
- No algorithms or ads
- Discover new users and topics
- Post with images, videos, and polls
- Create custom lists
- Filter content
- Cross-platform communication
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Mastodon is the best way to keep up with what’s happening. Follow anyone across the fediverse and see it all in chronological order. No algorithms, ads, or clickbait in sight. This is the official iOS app for Mastodon. In our app, you can: EXPLORE ■ Discover new writers, journalists, artists, photographers, scientists and more ■ See what’s happening in the world READ ■ Keep up with people you care about in a chronological feed with no interruptions ■ Follow hashtags to keep up with specific topics in real time CREATE ■ Post to your followers or the whole world, with polls, high quality images and videos ■ Participate in interesting conversations with other people CURATE ■ Create lists of people to never miss a post ■ Filter words or phrases to control what you do and don’t want to see AND MORE! ■ Login and switch between multiple accounts ■ No spoilers! You can put your posts behind content warnings A POWERFUL PUBLISHING PLATFORM You no longer have to try and appease an opaque algorithm that decides if your friends are going to see what you posted. If they follow you, they’ll see it. If you publish it to the open web, it’s accessible on the open web. You can safely share links to Mastodon in the knowledge that anyone will be able to read them without logging in. Between threads, polls, high quality images, videos, audio, and content warnings, Mastodon offers plenty of ways to express yourself in a way that suits you. A POWERFUL READING PLATFORM We don’t need to show you ads, so we don’t need to keep you in our app. Mastodon has the richest selection of 3rd party apps and integrations so you can choose the experience that fits you best. Thanks to the chronological home feed, it’s easy to tell when you’ve caught up on all updates and can move on to something else. No need to worry that a misclick will ruin your recommendations forever. We don’t guess what you want to see, we let you control it. PROTOCOLS, NOT PLATFORMS Mastodon is not like a traditional social media platform, but is built on a decentralized protocol. You can sign up on our official server, or choose a 3rd party to host your data and moderate your experience. Thanks to the common protocol, no matter what you choose, you can communicate seamlessly with people on other Mastodon servers. But there’s more: With just one account, you can communicate with people from other fediverse platforms. Not happy with your choice? You can always switch to a different Mastodon server while taking your followers with you. For advanced users, you can even host your data on your own infrastructure, since Mastodon is open-source. NON-PROFIT IN NATURE Mastodon is a registered non-profit in the US and Germany. We are not motivated by extracting monetary value from the platform, but by what’s best for the platform. AS FEATURED IN: TIME, Forbes, Wired, The Guardian, CNN, The Verge, TechCrunch, Financial Times, Gizmodo, PCMAG.com, and more.
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is rating: Mastodon at 4.5 against HootBoard's 3.5. Mastodon also leads on ratings volume (13K vs 4). HootBoard's advantage is iOS requirement (15.1 vs 18.6). On price, review sentiment, update cadence and ads there is nothing between them.
Scored on Price · Rating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings · Update frequency · Ads · In-app purchases · Monetization · Best chart rank · Devices · Requires iOS
Both are free to download. Neither carries in-app purchases, so what you see is what you pay.
Mastodon holds the better App Store score, 4.5 against 3.5. That said, the two scores are not equally well evidenced: Mastodon has 13K ratings behind it against 4, so its average is the more settled of the two. Written reviews complicate that: 50% of HootBoard's written reviews are positive against 48% of Mastodon's, so the app with the better star average is not the one people write more warmly about.
HootBoard ships an update every 2 months, Mastodon monthly. The most recent releases landed on September 23, 2026 and October 21, 2026 respectively.
| Parameter | HootBoard | Mastodon |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free | Free |
| Rating | 3.5 (4 ratings) | 4.5 (13K ratings) — better |
| Positive reviews | 50.0% of reviews — better | 48.3% of reviews |
| Number of ratings | 4 | 13K — better |
| Update frequency | Every 2 months | Monthly — better |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | No | No |
| Monetization | Free | Free |
| Devices | iPhone, iPad, iPod — better | iPhone, iPad |
| Requires iOS | 15.1 — better | 18.6 |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 36 MB | 110 MB |
| Age rating | 4+ | 17+ |
| Developer | HOOTBOARD LLC | Mastodon GmbH |
Customer experience
HootBoard
Mastodon
Bugs and requests
HootBoard
Not enough reviews yet to summarise bugs or requests.
Mastodon
Reported bugs
4 issues- Can't log in or create account
- Keyboard freezes during editing
- Inconsistent behavior when switching accounts
- Notifications not working as expected
Requested features
5 requests- Add local and federated timelines
- Improve search and discovery features
- Implement edit and delete post functionality
- Add support for animated GIFs
- Provide better accessibility options
In-app purchases
HootBoard
No in-app purchases
Mastodon
No in-app purchases









