Federated Future

Federated & Decentralized: My Mastodon and Bluesky Servers

In a world where corporate control and algorithmic timelines dominate most social media, platforms like Mastodon and Bluesky offer something radically different: user control, decentralization, and open participation. I believe strongly in the mission of decentralized communication, so I self-host both a Mastodon instance and a Bluesky PDS (Personal Data Server). Here’s a look at both platforms, their differences, and why I chose to host them myself.

Mastodon: Federated, Open, and Growing

Mastodon is a free, open-source microblogging platform that functions much like Twitter but with a key difference: it’s federated. That means Mastodon isn’t a single website or app—it’s a network of independently operated servers (called instances), all communicating using the ActivityPub protocol. Each instance sets its own rules, moderation policies, and community culture, while still allowing users to follow and interact with users from other instances.

Mastodon empowers users to choose or run their own server, aligning with their values on privacy, moderation, and content. This model reduces the power of centralized gatekeepers and encourages smaller, more intentional communities. Following Elon Musk’s acquisition of Twitter in April 2022, Mastodon saw a significant rise in interest—30,000 new users in just a few days, and by early 2023, it reached 1.8 million active users.

Eugen Rochko, Mastodon's founder, said in an interview with Time:

"Being able to express myself online to my friends through short messages was actually very important to me, important also to the world, and that maybe it should not be in the hands of a single corporation that can just do whatever it wants with it."

My Mastodon Server

I self-host my own Mastodon instance as part of my commitment to open web technologies and data sovereignty. The journey to get it running was a challenge—especially learning how to securely expose it to the internet without port forwarding. I opted to use a Cloudflare Tunnel, providing secure access to the server without opening up my home network.

If you are interested in joining Mastodon, I've included a link to join the official Mastodon instance, hosted by Mastodon gGmbH non-profit. I've also included a link to my instance. If you are interested in joining my instance, shoot me a email at [email protected] and I'll create you an account. I currently do not have a way to register for an account automatically on my instance to avoid fake or bot accounts from being created.

Bluesky: The AT Protocol and Portable Identity

While Mastodon builds on the federated model of the Fediverse using ActivityPub, Bluesky takes a different approach to decentralization. It uses a custom protocol called the AT Protocol (Authenticated Transfer Protocol), focused on portable identities, decentralized moderation, and data portability.

Bluesky was initially incubated within Twitter but spun out into an independent public benefit corporation. Unlike Mastodon’s federated model where each server can fully moderate itself and even block other servers, the AT Protocol is built around the idea of data portability and composable moderation. That means you can move your identity and social graph between services, while using community-defined moderation services to filter or rank content.

My Bluesky PDS

I self-host a Bluesky Personal Data Server (PDS), which stores my identity and data in the Bluesky ecosystem. Like Mastodon, hosting my own PDS gives me more control over my social presence, data, and privacy. While Bluesky is still evolving—especially in how federation and moderation are implemented—the promise of portable, user-owned identities is powerful.

Setting up a PDS was a bit more technical, and while federation is currently limited to Bluesky's official relay (with more to come), I'm excited to be part of its early adopter wave. Hosting a PDS now means being ready for the next stage of decentralization when the protocol opens to third-party relays and clients.

If you are interested in joining Bluesky, I've included a link to join below!