Comparison

Mastodon vs NACENE

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

Head to head
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.

About

NACENE

A social media platform designed to connect people and families globally. Share daily activities, interests, and market products within your community. The service is free for users, with relevant advertisements shown to businesses.

Highlights
  • Connect with people and family
  • Share daily activities and interests
  • Market, buy, and sell products/services
  • Community-focused platform
  • Relevant advertising for businesses
Features
Read full description

Nacene is a social media platform that focuses on connecting people and family. We are a company that was founded in the Coachella Valley, where its team members are inspired to help connect others to the rest of the globe. The company name, Nacene, is in remembrance of the founder's daughter as a form of respect towards her short experience of existence. Nacene serves itself as a platform where it offers many to fulfill their desire to connect with others and give more accessibility to other people to post their daily activities and share their interests, along with also being able to market, buy, and sell products and services within their own community. We have invested our time and effort into this platform in order to give you the best technology available in the market, making sure to only hire the best tech engineers that will evolve the website towards providing you the best experience possible. Our number one priority is to ensure you that you will always stay connected with your community and that the business you may have established will prosper. We don't charge for the use of this new platform; this is completely free to the user. Instead, we charge businesses and organizations that want to be advertised on our platform. We will make sure to only show you advertisements that will be relevant to you. We are a certified website and we strongly promise you that we will never sell your personal information or your data to any outside source. We aspire to provide the best experience in our website, and we invite you to share it with as many people as possible. Thank you for participating in our free-to-use platform.

Screenshots

Mastodon4 screens
NACENE4 screens

Verdict

The call

The clearest difference is rating: NACENE at 5.0 against Mastodon's 4.5. NACENE also leads on update cadence (every 5 days vs monthly) and iOS requirement (12.1 vs 18.6). Mastodon's advantage is ratings volume (13K vs 2). On price, ads, in-app purchases and monetization model 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. Neither carries in-app purchases, so what you see is what you pay.

ReceptionRating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings

NACENE holds the better App Store score, 5.0 against 4.5. That said, the two scores are not equally well evidenced: Mastodon has 13K ratings behind it against 2, so its average is the more settled of the two.

UpkeepUpdate frequency

Mastodon ships an update monthly, NACENE every 5 days. The most recent releases landed on November 8, 2026 and November 3, 2026 respectively.

Scorecard4 real differences · 6 level
Mastodon versus NACENE: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParameterMastodonNACENE
PriceFreeFree
Rating4.5 (13K ratings)5.0 (2 ratings) — better
Positive reviews48.3% of reviews—
Number of ratings13K — better2
Update frequencyMonthlyEvery 5 days — better
AdsNoNo
In-app purchasesNoNo
MonetizationFreeFree
DevicesiPhone, iPadiPhone, iPad, iPod — better
Requires iOS18.612.1 — better
Further details — not scored
Size110 MB81 MB
Age rating17+17+
DeveloperMastodon GmbHUNLIMITED COLLISION LLC

Customer experience

Mastodon

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

NACENE

All ratings2 ratings
Positive100.0%
Neutral0.0%
Negative0.0%

Bugs and 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

NACENE

Not enough reviews yet to summarise bugs or requests.

In-app purchases

None

Mastodon

No in-app purchases

None

NACENE

No in-app purchases

Questions

Is Mastodon free?
Mastodon is free to download, with no in-app purchases.
Is NACENE free?
NACENE is free to download, with no in-app purchases.
Which has better reviews, Mastodon or NACENE?
NACENE is rated higher. Mastodon averages 4.5 out of 5 from 13K ratings, while NACENE averages 5.0 from 2 ratings.
Do Mastodon or NACENE have ads?
Neither Mastodon nor NACENE shows ads.
Which is updated more often, Mastodon or NACENE?
Mastodon ships an update monthly, and NACENE every 5 days. Most recently, Mastodon was updated on November 8, 2026 and NACENE on November 3, 2026.

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