Mastodon, a decentralized alternative to X, plans to target creators with new features

Mastodon, the decentralised and open-source social media platform often positioned as an alternative to larger networks like X and Threads, said on Wednesday that it’s preparing a set of updates aimed at making the app easier for newcomers to understand while also adding more creator-focused features.

The announcement follows the growth of Mastodon’s core development team over the last 18 months, which has expanded to include people with experience spanning web and mobile development and back-end engineering. The organisation has also hired a dedicated product designer, according to a new blog post co-authored by Mastodon technical director Renaud Chaput and product designer Imani Joy, which outlines the platform’s future direction.

Mastodon is part of the fediverse, a broader decentralised social web that runs on the ActivityPub protocol. The service returned to the spotlight after Elon Musk acquired Twitter — now called X — in October 2022. Since then, Mastodon has seen periodic bursts of growth but has also struggled to retain new users, in part because getting started can be more confusing than signing up for a traditional social app. Instead of simply creating an account with a username and password, Mastodon requires new users to choose a server to join, an extra step that can be unfamiliar to people who are new to decentralisation.

Today, Mastodon is estimated to have somewhere between 750,000 and 1 million monthly active users, depending on the source. One third-party tracker places it closer to 750,000, while another suggests it could be as high as 1 million. Mastodon’s own website puts the number at around 785,000.

As part of the upcoming changes, Mastodon says it plans to improve the onboarding experience to make it easier to understand, while also encouraging users to join smaller servers. Until now, many new users have defaulted to picking the largest servers, but Mastodon argues that this approach weakens the promise of a decentralised network. As the blog post explains, “Mastodon is best when communities are spread across many independent servers, each with its own character and focus.”

To support that goal, the platform says it will introduce new administrative tools to simplify maintenance and moderation for independent server operators. Those tools include an option to use external blocklists. Mastodon also plans to offer ways to set up content scanning to identify illegal content and spam. Additional tools are being developed to reduce media storage demands, including a method for serving remote media posts through a trusted third party.

At the same time, Mastodon says it wants to attract more creators — including public figures, journalists, and institutions — through a series of updates to the app itself. Among the planned changes is a redesigned user profile intended to help people better showcase their work, along with an improved composing experience. Also under development is an email notification feature that would let someone subscribe to updates even if they don’t yet have a Mastodon account. That could make the platform more appealing to people who want to follow newsletter writers, reporters, thought leaders, and other creators, while giving those creators a way to reach a broader audience.

The plans build on other updates Mastodon has rolled out in recent months. Those include Quote Posts — similar to comparable features on X and elsewhere, but with more user controls — and work on its own version of Starter Pack-style account recommendations, called Collections.

The announcement also comes amid leadership changes at the organisation. Founder Eugen Rochko stepped down as CEO after Mastodon said at the beginning of the year that it would transition to a nonprofit structure. Felix Hlatky, based in Austria, has since become executive director. Mastodon has also said it will divide Hlatky’s responsibilities. Dr Marius Rothermund, a certified German lawyer, will primarily provide legal guidance during the restructuring process spanning three markets: the U.S., Germany, and Belgium.