MastodonAvailable now
A Mastodon feed widget for any server in the fediverse.
Mastodon is not one website but thousands of independent servers that talk to each other. A Mastodon feed widget has to know which server an account lives on, ask that server directly, and respect the choices the author made about who sees what. Get those three right and it is one of the easiest networks to put on a page.
Mastodon works today on every plan, including Free. Every Mastodon server answers for its own public accounts, so there is nothing to sign in to and no key on either side.
What Mastodon hands over
What a Mastodon widget can show
Every Mastodon server serves its members' public posts to anyone who asks. We ask the account's own server rather than a central index, because there isn't one, and we keep to what the author marked as public.
What you get
- Original posts from any public account, as @name@server or a profile link, including one you found through another server
- The first attached image or video, with the author's image description as alt text
- Video posts as a still with their running time
- Favourite and reply counts at the moment of sync
- A link from each post to its page on the author's server
What it won’t do
- Replies and boosts: the wall shows what the account wrote itself
- Posts set to unlisted, followers-only or direct. Only public posts are shown
- Anything behind a content warning or marked sensitive, which the author asked not to show without a click
- Every attachment on a post: a tile shows the first of up to four
- The whole fediverse's view of a hashtag. A tag is read from one server, and some servers close that timeline to logged-out readers
Setup
How to add a Mastodon feed to your website.
Copy the full address
A Mastodon handle has two halves: @name@server. The server matters, because @studio@mastodon.social and @studio@hachyderm.io are different accounts. A profile URL works too, and carries the server with it.
Add Mastodon as a source
Paste it into Sources. We look the account up on its own server and read its recent public posts. There is no sign-in, because a public Mastodon post needs no permission to read.
Choose a layout for text and images
Mastodon posts run long, up to 500 characters on most servers, and often carry a described image. An editorial or compact layout gives both room.
Embed it
Paste the snippet into your site once. New public posts arrive at your plan's refresh cadence, with no redeploy.
Mastodon, in particular
The author's settings travel with the post
Mastodon gives authors more say over each post than most networks do: who can see it, and whether it needs a content warning before it shows. A widget that ignores those settings puts things on your site that the author deliberately kept quieter. This one reads them and leaves those posts out.
- Only posts set to public reach the wall; unlisted and followers-only posts never do
- A content warning or a sensitive-media flag keeps a post off the wall, because an embed cannot offer the click the author asked for
- Image descriptions come through as alt text, so a described photo stays described on your page
- Each account is followed by its id on its own server, which survives a username change
- A server that closes its public timelines refuses a hashtag feed when you connect it, rather than leaving an empty wall to find later
Install guides
Works on the site you already have.
The embed is one script tag and one element, which every builder that allows custom HTML accepts, and it renders in its own shadow root so your styles and ours never collide. Each guide shows where the paste box lives.
No. Mastodon servers serve public posts to anyone, so there is nothing to sign in to. You need the account's full address, @name@server, or a link to its profile, and the posts you want on the wall have to be public.
Any server running Mastodon, from mastodon.social and hachyderm.io to a single-person instance. We ask the account's own server directly rather than going through a central service, because the fediverse does not have one.
From one server's view of it. A Mastodon hashtag is whatever has reached the server you ask, so a large, well-connected server gives the fullest picture of a busy tag. Servers that close public timelines to logged-out readers refuse the connection outright.
Usually because of a setting on the post itself. Replies and boosts are left out on purpose, and so are posts that are unlisted, followers-only, marked sensitive or behind a content warning. A public, uncovered post of your own arrives at the next refresh.
Yes. Reading a Mastodon server costs nothing and uses no shared quota, so Mastodon is one of the free sources on every plan. On Free it can be one of the two sources in your feed.
More networks
Other feeds people build.
Every network compared side by side, including what each one demands before it will hand anything over, is on the social media widgets overview.
Bluesky widget
Public posts from any account, no sign-in needed
RSS widget
Articles from any blog or publication feed
Twitter (X) widget
Public posts from any account, a hashtag, or mentions
Build your first wall today.
Connect Mastodon from your workspace, pick a layout, and paste one line of embed code.