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Descriptions to copy, the numbers with the method behind them, screenshots, the logo, and a person who answers email. All of it free to use in reporting. If something you need is missing, write to me and you will have it the same day.

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Three lengths in English, two in German. Please keep the name lowercase.

One sentence

abuuba is a fediverse server written in Elixir and Phoenix that speaks Mastodon's protocols and answers 12 to 68 times faster than Mastodon on the same hardware.

Fifty words

abuuba is a fediverse server written in Elixir and Phoenix. It federates over ActivityPub and answers all 289 endpoints of the Mastodon client API, so apps built for Mastodon work against it unchanged. On the same hardware it serves timelines 12 to 18 times faster. MIT licence, one application, one Postgres.

A paragraph

abuuba is a fediverse server written in Elixir and Phoenix, published under the MIT licence by Stefan Wintermeyer in Koblenz. It federates over ActivityPub and answers all 289 endpoints of the Mastodon client API, so existing Mastodon apps work against it unchanged. It exists because Mastodon is slow: measured on one machine against Mastodon 4.4.7, abuuba serves the home timeline 12 times faster at the median and fans a post out to 10,000 followers 68 times faster. It runs as one application process next to one Postgres database, with no Redis, no worker process and no JavaScript build. An existing Mastodon instance can be taken over in place, on its own domain, with its accounts, posts, follows and moderation history. It is version 1.0 and not ready for production: it has bugs nobody has found yet, and it belongs in a lab rather than under a live community.

Ein Satz

abuuba ist ein Fediverse-Server in Elixir und Phoenix, der Mastodons Protokolle spricht und auf derselben Hardware 12- bis 68-mal schneller antwortet als Mastodon.

Fünfzig Wörter

abuuba ist ein Fediverse-Server, geschrieben in Elixir und Phoenix. Er föderiert über ActivityPub und beantwortet alle 289 Endpunkte der Mastodon-Client-API, sodass vorhandene Mastodon-Apps unverändert funktionieren. Auf derselben Hardware liefert er Timelines 12- bis 18-mal schneller als Mastodon. MIT-Lizenz, eine Anwendung, eine Postgres-Datenbank. Version 1.0 und noch nicht produktionsreif: abuuba gehört ins Labor, nicht unter eine laufende Community.

Fact sheet.

Name
abuuba, always lowercase
What it is
A fediverse server: ActivityPub for federation, the Mastodon client API for apps
Version
1.0
Status
Not ready for production. It has bugs nobody has found yet and has never run a real community; a lab is the right place for it.
Public since
28 August 2026
Licence
MIT
Written in
Elixir, Phoenix, LiveView
Runs on
One BEAM application and one Postgres database. No Redis, no worker process, no Node.
Client API
All 289 endpoints Mastodon 4.6 declares under /api/v1 and /api/v2
Federation
Tested against Mastodon 4.4.7 and GoToSocial 0.19.1 in Docker, 32 scenarios
Migration
Takes over a Mastodon instance in place, on the same domain, with one command against the old database
Size
About 85,000 lines of application code, 4,458 tests, 453 lines of JavaScript, no npm dependencies
Author
Stefan Wintermeyer, Koblenz, Germany
Source
github.com/wintermeyer/abuuba
Website
abuuba.com
News
@abuuba@vutuv.de

The numbers, and how they were taken.

Both servers ran on one bare-metal box, same data, same Postgres image, untuned on both sides. Medians of three runs on 28 August 2026 against Mastodon v4.4.7. The machine: 2× AMD EPYC 9254, 96 threads, 1.0 TiB DDR5, Debian 13, Postgres 17.10.

Same machine, same data, same PostgresabuubaMastodonResult
Home timeline p507.37 ms85.83 ms12× faster
Home timeline p9917.81 ms292.10 ms16× faster
Public timeline p505.33 ms76.71 ms14× faster
Public timeline p9911.45 ms204.23 ms18× faster
Fan-out to the last of 10,000 followers830 ms56,874 ms68× faster
Memory, idle725 MB1,175 MB1.6× smaller
Restart, until it answers again2,695 ms4,816 ms1.8× faster

The harness, the queries and the raw output are public: bench/README.md. Run it yourself and tell me if you get something else. If you quote one figure, the home timeline p50 is the honest one to lead with; the 68× fan-out is the most dramatic and the least representative.

What abuuba is not.

  • Not a Mastodon fork. No line of Mastodon's code is in it. Mastodon is AGPL, abuuba is MIT; what the two share is the protocols, which are written down in public.
  • Not a hosted service. There is no abuuba.com sign-up. It is software you install on your own server.
  • Not a company product. One person wrote it, as a side project of vutuv.
  • Not a bid to kill Mastodon. An instance can be replaced by one of these, domain and accounts and posts intact, if its admin wants that. The hope is still the nginx effect: nginx did not kill Apache, it made Apache faster.

Screenshots, free to print.

From a running instance, cropped and not otherwise touched, in the dark theme abuuba takes from the system settings. Credit line: Screenshot: abuuba. Need the mobile layout, the light theme or a screen that is not here? Ask, and I will make it.

The explore timeline: seven posts from five accounts, each row with an avatar, a display name, a handle and how long ago it was posted.
Explore timeline, logged out 2,120 × 1,590 px PNG AVIF
An account page for Nadia Osei: avatar, display name, handle, a one-line bio, and tabs for posts, posts and replies, media, followers and follows.
An account page 2,120 × 1,004 px PNG AVIF
Writing a post: a text box with three sentences in it, a live preview below, and a row of controls for a content warning, a poll, the language, the audience, the character count, scheduling and the post button.
Writing a post 2,120 × 1,520 px PNG AVIF
The compose box with a poll open: two answer fields filled in, a link to add a third, a checkbox for allowing more than one choice, and a menu for how long it runs.
The compose box with a poll 2,120 × 1,380 px PNG AVIF
A conversation of three posts, the one being read marked with a coloured bar down its left edge, each with reply, boost, favourite and bookmark counts underneath.
A conversation 2,120 × 1,400 px PNG AVIF
The notifications screen with tabs for everything and for mentions, a row of checkboxes choosing which kinds arrive, and notifications about a mention and a new post.
Notifications 2,120 × 1,320 px PNG AVIF
The messages inbox: one line per conversation, showing who it is with and the last message in it.
The message inbox 2,120 × 860 px PNG AVIF
The first question of a report: five choices, from I do not like it through spam, illegal and something else, each with a sentence saying what it means.
Reporting somebody 2,120 × 1,140 px PNG AVIF
The follow requests screen: one person waiting, with a button to let them follow and a button to turn them away.
Follow requests 2,120 × 780 px PNG AVIF
The bookmarks screen with tabs for bookmarks and favourites, and the posts this account has filed away.
Bookmarks 2,120 × 1,200 px PNG AVIF
The settings overview: fourteen sections from profile and appearance through privacy, filters, security, apps and export, each with a line saying what it holds.
Settings 2,120 × 1,440 px PNG AVIF
The admin dashboard: seventeen sections across the top, three counters for reports, appeals and people waiting, and thirty-day charts for people who posted, new accounts, posts written and interactions.
The admin dashboard 2,120 × 1,320 px PNG AVIF

Logo and colours.

Four spots off a cheetah, and the name in lowercase. Keep the spots gold on a dark ground or gold on white, leave a spot's width of space around the mark, and do not stretch or recolour it.

The abuuba logo: four gold spots beside the name in lowercase, on the dark brand background.
Logo for dark backgroundsPNG, 1,290 × 346 pxDownload
The abuuba logo in black with gold spots, for light backgrounds.
Logo for light backgroundsPNG with transparency, 1,288 × 346 pxDownload
The abuuba app icon: four gold spots on a dark rounded square.
IconSVG and PNG, 512 × 512 pxSVG PNG
The abuuba mark on its own: four gold spots.
Mark on its ownSVG, scales to any sizeSVG
Gold #E5A72E Ground #171210 Ink #F4EBDD

The wordmark is lowercase Didot; any Didone face sets it correctly. The website uses whatever the reader's system has.

Stefan Wintermeyer.

Founder of Wintermeyer Consulting in Koblenz, where he consults on Ruby on Rails, the Phoenix Framework and web performance, and founder of the business network vutuv. abuuba started as a side project of vutuv: vutuv is fast, its fediverse peer was not.

He wrote it alone and in the open. On the how he is direct: this much code in this time came out of agentic coding, and what matters there is not the speed but that the tedious correct thing gets done every time.

Pronunciation: [ˈʃtɛfan ˈvɪntɐˌmaɪ̯ɐ]. Interviews in German or English. A portrait photo on request.

Contact

E-mail
sw@wintermeyer-consulting.de
Phone
+49 261 988 68 03
Post
Wintermeyer Consulting
Johannes-Müller-Str. 10
56068 Koblenz, Germany
Fediverse
@wintermeyer@vutuv.de
Languages
German, English

Things I can talk about.

  • Why a fediverse server gets slow, what fan-out to ten thousand followers actually costs, and what the BEAM does differently from a Rails-shaped stack.
  • One person, a team's output. What agentic coding produced here, where it still needs a human, and what it does to the standards a small project can hold itself to.
  • What a server costs to run when it is one process and one database: memory, restarts, and what that means for people paying for an instance themselves.
  • Federation in practice: what breaks between servers, and why testing against real Mastodon and GoToSocial containers finds things a mock never will.
  • Software from Germany and the EU. Why I think it can be good, and what that takes.

Terms, short.

The text on this page and every asset linked from it may be used in reporting about abuuba without asking. Screenshots take the credit line Screenshot: abuuba. The source code is under the MIT licence. "Mastodon" is a trademark of the Mastodon gGmbH and is used here only to name that software.

Write to me Follow abuuba Source on GitHub