Mastodon
Your social network. Your AWS account. Nobody else's algorithm.
A production-ready Mastodon deployment in your own AWS account in about 20 minutes — the free, federated social network, configured the way an AWS consultancy would do it for a growing community.
Deploy on AWS Marketplace →A Social Network You Actually Own
Media & Publishers
An owned audience that doesn't depend on someone else's algorithm.
Brand Communities
A dedicated, moderated space instead of renting attention on someone else's platform.
Open Source Projects
Community discussion under your own moderation rules.
Advocacy & Nonprofit Orgs
Reach your audience directly, without algorithmic throttling.
Universities
Alumni and student communities that stay under institutional control.
Professional & Niche Communities
Moderation control that matches your community's actual standards.
If you're tired of building an audience on infrastructure you don't control, the next section shows what running your own instance actually involves.
Managed Mastodon Hosting vs. One Flat Cost
| Masto.host | This Pattern | |
|---|---|---|
| Price | From $6/mo, scales with community size | $0.02/hr flat (~$14.60/mo) |
| Pricing model | Per instance, tiered by usage | Per organization |
| Billing | Monthly | Usage-based, cancel anytime |
| Data lives on | Masto.host's servers | Your own AWS account |
| Cost as you grow | Scales up with active users, storage, and federation traffic | Stays flat |
Masto.host prices by estimated active users, federation processing load, and storage — actual cost at scale depends on your community's size and activity, so confirm current tier pricing directly before publishing. Other managed options found in research (FediHost, toot.io) didn't have clear public pricing to compare.
Managed Mastodon hosts like Masto.host price by active users, processing load, and storage — so cost climbs as your instance grows. This pattern's AWS costs scale with actual usage, but there's no per-user tier increase on top of it.
Free, Federated Social Networking
Mastodon's core is free and open source. Self-hosting it means full moderation control under your own rules, no algorithmic feed manipulation, no ads, and the ability to move your data between servers whenever you want.
Free & open-source, no license fees
No algorithmic feed manipulation
Community data stays in your infrastructure
Full moderation control, no ads
Production-Ready, Following AWS Best Practices
This CloudFormation template and custom AMI deploy a complete Mastodon environment — live in about 20 minutes.
Federated Network
Connect with millions across the fediverse.
Content Control
Robust moderation and content warning tools.
No Algorithms
Chronological timeline without manipulation.
Data Portability
Move your account between servers.
What's Easy to Get Wrong, Handled By Default
Tuning Sidekiq background job queues for federation traffic
Auto-scaling EC2 for web and Sidekiq, sized for you
Setting up full-text search infrastructure
OpenSearch full-text search, built in from day one
Managing media storage costs as the instance grows
S3 media storage with CloudFront delivery, pay for what you use
Debugging federation and ActivityPub delivery issues
ElastiCache Redis for caching and queues, configured for reliable federation
FOSSonCloud is built by Ordinary Experts, an AWS Consulting Partner working in Infrastructure as Code since 2014. This isn't a repackaged black-box AMI — the CloudFormation template is open source, so you can see exactly what's being deployed.
Architecture
This pattern deploys a complete Mastodon infrastructure including:
- Auto-scaling EC2 instances for web and Sidekiq
- RDS PostgreSQL database
- ElastiCache Redis for caching and queues
- OpenSearch for full-text search
- S3 for media storage
- CloudFront CDN
What You'll Need
Everything required to go from this page to a running Mastodon deployment.
An AWS Account
With billing enabled and permission to launch resources in the region you plan to deploy to.
A Subscription to This Pattern on AWS Marketplace
Accepting the marketplace terms is what makes the CloudFormation template available to launch in your account.
A Registered Domain Name
Pointed at the infrastructure this pattern creates — needed for your instance's public URL and SSL certificate.
IAM Permissions to Launch CloudFormation Stacks
The stack creates auto-scaling EC2 instances, an RDS database, ElastiCache, OpenSearch, an S3 bucket, and a CloudFront distribution on your behalf.
About 20 Minutes
For the stack to finish launching before your instance is live.
Up and Running in 4 Steps
Subscribe to the Mastodon pattern on AWS Marketplace
Launch the CloudFormation stack in your AWS account
Configure your instance settings
Start building your community — live in about 20 minutes
Self-Hosted Doesn't Mean Unsupported
Free Onboarding Session
A 1-hour call with a FOSSonCloud engineer, included with every deployment.
Ongoing Email Support
Direct line to support@fossoncloud.com whenever you need it.
Fully Open Source
Deploy on AWS Marketplace
Production-ready Mastodon in your own AWS account, live in about 20 minutes.
Deploy on AWS Marketplace →