Michael StancliftFeb 20

How many Mastodon instances are there? How many active users are there? Depends on where you look and how you count.

Quick sanity check across datasources...

vmcrawl 
Instances: 9,226
MAU: 787,574

joinmastodon.org 
Instances: 7,952
MAU: 780,355

FediDB 
Instances: 9,193
MAU: 1,037,321

(Based on 20 Feb 2026 API data for all sources)

The world, may never know.

Show threadJames CridlandFeb 20
@vmstan Do we know that FediDB is only Mastodon instances? I'm suspecting it isn't.
Show threadcraftxboxFeb 20
@james @vmstan According to fedidb, yes.
Show threadMichael Stanclift
@craftxbox @james yeah, that was from an API call to their /software/mastodon endpoint.
Feb 20 at 3:25amWeb
Show threadJames CridlandFeb 20

@vmstan @craftxbox Ah, yes. https://fedidb.com/software

Well, then.

Show threadMichael StancliftFeb 20
@james @craftxbox something is not adding up. The total for Mastodon is higher than the total for all active users across all platforms.
Show threadcraftxboxFeb 20
@vmstan @james I do think FediDB has been the subject of various spoofing attacks in the past, I do recall a server that didn't really exist briefly showing up with twice the MAU of the entire network before they dealt with it.