Comparison

BuyNothing vs Mastodon

Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.

Head to head
About

BuyNothing

Connect with your local community to give, receive, share, lend, and borrow items. This app fosters a gift economy, building connections through sharing, inspired by the BuyNothing® Project.

Highlights
  • Give and receive items locally
  • Lend and borrow goods
  • Hyper-local community sharing
  • Gift economy model
  • Build community connections
  • Express gratitude
Features
Read full description

We offer people a way to give, receive, share, lend, borrow and express gratitude through a hyper-local gift economy model in which people can share wherever they are and true wealth is measured by the web of connections formed between people through sharing. From the founders of the BuyNothing® Project. Terms of Use: https://buynothingproject.org/terms

About

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.

Highlights
  • 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
Features
Read full description

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

BuyNothing4 screens
Mastodon4 screens

Verdict

The call

The clearest difference is in-app purchases: Mastodon at none against BuyNothing's 8. Mastodon also leads on review sentiment (48% vs 27%) and rating (4.5 vs 4.3). BuyNothing's advantage is update cadence (every 2 weeks vs monthly) and chart position (#157 vs unranked). On price, ads and device support 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

CostPrice · In-app purchases · Ads · Monetization

Both are free to download. BuyNothing sells 8 in-app purchases, starting at $3.99 per month. Mastodon asks for nothing beyond the download.

ReceptionRating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings

Mastodon holds the better App Store score, 4.5 against 4.3. That said, the two scores are not equally well evidenced: Mastodon has 13K ratings behind it against 2.1K, so its average is the more settled of the two. Written reviews point the same way: 27% of BuyNothing's written reviews are positive against 48% of Mastodon's.

UpkeepUpdate frequency

BuyNothing ships an update every 2 weeks, Mastodon monthly. The most recent releases landed on October 30, 2026 and November 1, 2026 respectively.

Scorecard8 real differences · 3 level
BuyNothing versus Mastodon: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParameterBuyNothingMastodon
PriceFreeFree
Rating4.3 (2.1K ratings)4.5 (13K ratings) — better
Positive reviews26.9% of reviews48.3% of reviews — better
Number of ratings2.1K13K — better
Update frequencyEvery 2 weeks — betterMonthly
AdsNoNo
In-app purchasesYesNo — better
MonetizationFree with in-app purchasesFree — better
Best chart rank#157 — better—
DevicesiPhone, iPadiPhone, iPad
Requires iOS16.0 — better18.6
Further details — not scored
Size76 MB110 MB
Age rating12+17+
DeveloperBuy Nothing Project, Inc.Mastodon GmbH

Customer experience

BuyNothing

All ratings2,081 ratings
Positive80.2%
Neutral5.2%
Negative14.6%
Written reviews387 reviews
Positive26.9%
Neutral12.9%
Negative60.2%

Mastodon

All ratings13,482 ratings
Positive88.8%
Neutral5.9%
Negative5.3%
Written reviews890 reviews
Positive48.3%
Neutral18.8%
Negative32.9%

User reviews

BuyNothing

From 2.1K App Store ratings

What we love

  • 🤝 Friendly community interactions
  • ♻️ Promotes sustainability and reducing waste
  • 🌍 Global reach beyond local groups
  • 🏠 Hyper-local focus when set up properly
  • 📦 Smooth gifting and receiving process

Room to improve

  • 🐛 Buggy and unreliable app functionality
  • 📍 Difficulty filtering for local posts
  • 🔑 Login and account issues
  • 💬 Inconsistent notifications and messaging
  • 💰 Paywall for key features

Mastodon

From 13K App Store ratings

What we love

  • 👍 Friendly and welcoming community
  • 🚀 Decentralized and free from corporate control
  • 🔒 No data collection or ads
  • 🤖 Good alternative to Twitter
  • 💡 Ability to self-host servers

Room to improve

  • 🐛 Crashes and stability issues
  • 🤔 Confusing onboarding and server selection
  • 📱 Limited functionality compared to web version
  • 🔍 Difficulty finding and following people
  • 🕰️ Slow or delayed notifications

Bugs and requests

BuyNothing

Reported bugs

5 issues
  • Frequent app crashes and freezes
  • Login issues and inability to reset passwords
  • Inconsistent location settings and radius
  • Unreliable notifications and messaging
  • Inability to edit or update posts

Requested features

5 requests
  • Search function to find specific posts
  • Ability to edit and update posts
  • Improved organization and sorting of posts
  • Syncing across multiple devices
  • More robust moderation and community tools

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

8 purchases

BuyNothing

Subscriptions8
  • Buy Nothing Subscription$3.991 Month
  • Buy Nothing Pro$3.991 Month
  • Sustaining Member$5.491 Month
Show 5 more
  • Sustaining Member$6.991 Month
  • Buy Nothing Pro$38.491 Year
  • Buy Nothing Subscription$38.491 Year
  • Sustaining Member$54.991 Year
  • Sustaining Member$69.991 Year
None

Mastodon

No in-app purchases

Questions

Is BuyNothing free?
BuyNothing is free to download, with in-app purchases available.
Is Mastodon free?
Mastodon is free to download, with no in-app purchases.
Which has better reviews, BuyNothing or Mastodon?
Mastodon is rated higher. BuyNothing averages 4.3 out of 5 from 2.1K ratings, while Mastodon averages 4.5 from 13K ratings.
Do BuyNothing or Mastodon have ads?
Neither BuyNothing nor Mastodon shows ads.
Which is updated more often, BuyNothing or Mastodon?
BuyNothing ships an update every 2 weeks, and Mastodon monthly. Most recently, BuyNothing was updated on October 30, 2026 and Mastodon on November 1, 2026.

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