Cloudflare has launched Wildebeest, a Mastodon-compatible server that will allow people who want to explore the decentralized social network through their own server.
Decentralized social media network Mastodon has become somewhat more popular recently, with its independent servers, aka communities, each of which has its own topics and themes. (Though, after an initial boost of users, support appears to have dropped off.)
Related: The Mastodon barriers to entry and privacy concerns
Each server is managed by its own community and has its own policies and rules, but still has access to the whole social network, making it part of the federated network, or Fediverse.
To join Mastodon, a user can apply to an existing server or create their own. Creating your own server is a lengthy process, which is simplified by Cloudflare’s Wildebeest.
“Wildebeest serves two purposes: You can quickly deploy your Mastodon-compatible server on top of Cloudflare and connect it to the Fediverse in minutes, and you don’t need to worry about maintaining or protecting it from abuse or attacks; Cloudflare will do it for you automatically,” Cloudflare said in its announcement.
Wildebeest is open-source and available on GitHub where developers can improve it. On the GitHub page, Cloudflare included a tutorial to help users set up their own Mastodon servers.
“Wildebeest is a minimally viable Mastodon-compatible server right now, but we will keep improving it with more features and supporting it over time,” Cloudfare said. “After all, we’re using it for our official accounts. It is also open-sourced, meaning you are more than welcome to contribute with pull requests or feedback.”
