Ranking the Top Mastodon Clients on iOS

"There’s too many Mastodon clients to choose from". "I'm trying to jump into Mastodon but I don't know what app to use". "Please save us from Elon". If any of these sentences resonated with you, you've clicked on the right blog post. Today we rank the most popular Mastodon clients on iOS. Before you ask, no, I won't be listing "closed-source" as a "con".

Note: This ranking is entirely objective and 100% correct, absolutely no opinions were involved here. Mammoth users, set your emotion detectors to sarcasm mode.

#1 - Threads, an Instagram app

No, just kidding.

#1 - Mona for Mastodon - 9.5/10 (Paid)

Yeah, I know what you're thinking. Probably "Wow, you spelled Ivory very wrong". This app was a complete surprise to me. I had put off on trying it out for the longest time, thinking that there was no way a solo developer could make an experience as polished as the teams behind Mastodon, Tapbots, or Mammoth. Well, I was proven completely wrong.

What's the best Mastodon client for iOS? I'd say this one. My favourite feature? "Load from Remote Server", which shows you the actual stats on any post from anywhere. This app is pro after pro, and has only very minor cons.

Pros

• Tons of customization: App behaviours, swipe-gestures, button icons, and themes - what more could you ask for? Oh, wait, what about drop-down menu customization? Over a dozen different tab bar toggles? What about default playback speed for videos? Yeah, it has all of those.
• Speed, I am speed: This app is so fast you might get whiplash from using it. Unless you use Ivory and have a feel for the efficiency, you need to see it to believe it.
• Accessible: The developer made an effort to make the app accessible with things like highly tunable font sizes, adjustable colours, and detailed VoiceOver compatibility. Now personally since I can't test these with the level of expertise of people that rely on these features, I can't give my thoughts on this. It’s still cool though.

Cons

• Paid: Many key features, like post interactions and multiple accounts, are locked behind a paywall. It also has a separate fee for every supported platform, including separate purchases for iPhone and iPad. The good news is if you wanted the full experience it's a one-time fee across the board (0 subscriptions), and there’s also a package deal which includes all 3 platforms. It also has a 14-day free trial.
• Too many drop-down items enabled by default. A couple of them can be accessed from the same page the menu is on, so it makes it redundant for them to be there. The initially crowded drop-downs can be rather intimidating to new users. Keep in mind, though, that all this can be customized in the settings. You know what else I wish was customized? The app icon. It was recycled from the dev’s last project, Spring for Twitter. Oh well.

#2 - Ivory for iOS - 8.5/10 (Paid)

I’ve been using Ivory the most out of all the apps here (until I found Mona recently). The reason why it's so high up the list isn't its features. No, it certainly isn't its features. It's because this app feels rock solid. It's fast, reliable, and has cute CGI elephants around the app. This is really all you need to have a truly great Mastodon experience. Ivory's made by the developers of Tweetbot, so you already know it's gonna be a great app.

Pros

• Fast: You can zip around the app all while getting haptic feedback reminders to touch grass. It’s hard to overstate just how important this is. Ivory and Mona are really in a league of their own when it comes to being snappy.
• Reliable: There's only one bug I can point out, and it's not unique to Ivory. It's the occasional duplicate notifications. Point is, this is a very, very stable and polished client. In fact, it’s probably the most stable out of any client listed here.
• Analytics: You can view your profile stats and interaction summaries in a neatly organized area. It might be useful for public accounts, but not as much for users that prefer to stay hidden.
• You get to tell other Mastodon users that you use Ivory.

Cons

• Paid: Locks critical features behind a yearly subscription. On top of that, the subscription fee increases if you want to use it on your Mac.
• Lacking in features: Ivory gets updates infrequently, and most of the updates don't contain any major features. This normally wouldn't be a concern, except that it's missing amazing features that some other apps in this list already have. "Like what?", you ask. A few examples: Quote posts, Remote timelines, Account/Post Discovery, and Integrated translations (not a GTranslate redirect). Please don’t say "it’s on the road map”, I know. It’s been there for a while.
• Not as much customization: Sure, you can customize the accent colour, a few app behaviours, and the tab bar. It’s fine. But when you try clients like Ice Cubes or Mona you may realize that enhanced customization isn’t a gimmick. You’ll probably have a more personal experience with the granularity that those other clients provide.

#3 - Mammoth for Mastodon - 8/10 (Free)

Mammoth is probably the app I would recommend to any X users that wanted to move to Mastodon without paying (or even in general). It's got quite a few features (including some weird ones like emotion analysis), decent customization, and the UI is very similar to X's (for now). It easily rivals the above paid apps, but has a few noticeable bugs that occasionally disrupt the experience. It's close to being as smooth but isn't quite there yet. However, Mammoth 2.0 is releasing pretty soon which may change this rating. It apparently introduces an optional algorithm and adds plenty of polish around the app.

Pros

• Familiar interface: Ex-X users (what a goofy name) will feel right at home as they form new feeds.
• Great discovery: Mammoth contains a For You page and has excellent exploration and user discovery methods
• Well-rounded feature set: Mammoth has everything 95% of users need. Not an overwhelming amount, but not underwhelming either. It’s just the right amount of whelm. You definitely won’t be disappointed in this app’s features.

Cons

• Familiar interface: If you're trying hard to get away from X on every level, you will probably feel haunted while using this app.
• Sort of buggy: It's not very often, but you will run into some "huh?" moments in the hours that you use the app. Not a big deal, but something to know beforehand.

#4 - Ice Cubes for Mastodon - 7.9/10 (Free)

This should honestly be renamed to "Features for Mastodon", because that's by far its most recognizable trait. The sheer amount of different toggles, customization, and functionality in this app is wild, and the only app that rivals it in this category is Mona. It's not all strange functionality, either. For example there's a feature called Tag Groups, which lets you group multiple hashtags into a separate feed to scroll through.

Pros

• Jam-packed with features/customization: Tag Groups? Writing assitant? Multiple translation engines? It's got it all. Not too sure if you'll use all of it, but it's there.
• Very passionate dev: Now, this isn't at all to say that the other devs in this list aren't passionate. But the vibe you get while reading Thomas Ricouard simp for SwiftUI and post constant updates on Ice Cubes work is just different. I'm sure everyone on the list loves their app the same, but Thomas here is great at showing it.

Cons

• Clunkier than the competition: This app is a little bit slower in some places than other clients. It's most noticeable when: You open the app to a ton of new posts and tap to go to the top, You open the app and immediately try to go to another tab, or You try to use the app abnormally quickly in general. This really isn't a deal-breaker, as Ice Cubes has many users that love the app (I like it too). And, yes, this is all after the recent update that made the app only work on iOS 17+ for speed purposes.

#5 - Mastodon for iPhone and iPad - 7/10 (Free)

There is no absolutely no shame in using the official app. Seriously. I just want you to know this before you get bullied and laughed at by every client-elitist out there. Jokes aside, the app works just fine. I don't have any huge complaints, and neither will you while using it. Hang on, I have the perfect photo to describe this client:

Pros

• Works reliably: This app runs pretty great and covers all the basics of a microblogging client. Like Mammoth, it's a good choice for users coming from X or Threads.
• The official app has the lowest risk of shutting down or ending development. If for some reason you have an irrational fear of your social app being shut down (maybe you were an Apollo user), this app is the one for you. I strongly believe that the day this app closes is the day the server repo closes. It's just very unlikely to go while the backend keeps being worked on.

Cons

• Severe lack of customization: 3 colour schemes, take it or leave it. Seriously. That's basically all you can change in the app. If you like fine-tuning the appearance, look elsewhere.
• Lack of power-user features: Mastodon's official app is probably just under Ivory's level in terms of features, and that's saying a lot. But again, it works just fine for the average user.

#6 - tooot - 6/10 (Free)

This client is alright, but nothing to write home about. Well, if you wrote home for anything these days you’d be pretty weird but you get the point. Like the official client, this app gets the job done. It’s alright, but tooot’s pretty barebones in terms of features and customization. I really don’t have much else to say about tooot. It’s decent. Good job tooot dev.

Pros

• Vanilla microblogging experience: It has a simple layout, putting the focus on your feed and not much else.

Cons

• No customization: I’m not even exaggerating, nothing in this app can be customized. It’s either light mode or dark mode. Maybe that’s all you’re looking for, maybe it isn’t.
• Very few non-essential features

#7 - ThinkSocial for Mastodon - ?/10 (Free, beta)

I'm only mentioning this client because it's fundamentally different from all the other clients here. It's still in early development, and at the rate that it's going it will probably never be in a usable state. However, it's still worth bringing up because of this key difference: Feeds are horizontal. How it works is that you swipe left and right between pages that are posts and comments together. The goal according to the dev is to bring more focus to the community aspect. Cool stuff.

Pros

• Unique: A simple change in layout and orientation completely flips the Mastodon experience – figuratively and literally. It's a pretty interesting concept when you see it.

Cons

• Not in a usable state: You can get your feed and swipe through posts, sure. That's pretty much all though. On top of that, the app crashes like no tomorrow. The dev is well aware of this though and he makes sure we know it too. The app's version on Testflight is "0.0.0", which is probably binary for "the guy including this in a ranking post is a complete moron".

Where’s (insert client here)?

If you’re part of the small percentage of users that use something other than apps listed in the ranking, you’re in luck because this is the honourable mention section.

• Radiant for Mastodon: Radiant has a beautiful UI and users report that it’s fast. I haven’t tried it myself, so I can’t give my thoughts on it. I’m also not familiar with the developers behind it, unlike the main rankings.
• Stomp for Mastodon: This is an interesting one, it’s a client specifically made for watchOS. I’m not even sure if this belongs in a "top iOS clients" list, but it does technically have an iOS app.
• Toot!: Best app icon, but hasn’t received an update in 6 months which is why I didn’t review it.
• Feditext: This is based on Metatext, which is no longer maintained. I didn’t review this one because it doesn’t focus on Mastodon, but rather the entire Fediverse. I think this can lead to some inconsistencies between features, but I could very well be proven wrong when the app releases.
• Mastodon for Apple II: This is a client specifically made for the Apple II, an 8-bit computer released in 1977. I’m only listing this here in hopes that someone will pick it up as an emulated version and port it to iOS.

Conclusions

There you have it. Pretty much every Mastodon client ranked in one place. Having a variety of clients to choose from is one of the benefits of being on an open and transparent platform like Mastodon. Remember, while this post can be a useful guide, remember that something I like isn’t necessarily something you like. Wild concept, right? Have fun tooting!