Cloudflare revealed the release date Wildebeest (opens in a new tab)its own Mastodon-compatible server, which it hopes will attract new and curious users to operate its own cloud servers.
Social media has long been scrutinized for the way it handles our data, and Twitter has spent several long weeks in the spotlight under its new CEO, Elon Musk.
The result was a surge of interest in the fediverse: a network of interconnected servers used for social networking, blogging and website hosting. Mastodon has been at the forefront of this movement, with several sources indicating that it currently attracts between 2 and 2.5 million monthly active users.
Cloudflare Wildebeest for Mastodon
Cloudflare describes Wildebeest as an “open, easy-to-deploy ActivityPub and Mastodon compatible server” built on top of the existing Supercloud platform.
The company highlighted three reasons why social networking users might want to consider using Wildebeest instead of joining an existing server. You may want to create your own community; you cannot trust people responsible for other servers; or you may want full control over your own data.
Users can run an official Mastodon server, but it can be expensive and requires a high level of technical expertise. Wildebeest promises quick and easy deployment, and Cloudflare will also take care of maintenance and protection against abuse or attacks.
Other than that, Wildebeest is an open source project, which means the community will be able to continue adding new features and updating existing ones.
According to the company announcement (opens in a new tab)The Wildebeest is compatible with most client apps, including the official Mastodon apps for Android and iOS, Pinafore, Mammoth and Tooot. It is also looking at others, such as Ivory, and welcomes user conversations about adding support for other apps.
“Wildebeest is currently a minimally compatible Mastodon server, but we will be improving it over time with more features and support; after all, we use it on our official accounts. It’s also open-source, which means they’re more than welcome to contribute in the form of pull requests or feedback,” the company noted.