I like to share moments with friends, family, the world. What I don’t like is large corporations using my content and doing whatever they are up to: from ads to what have you.
Well, maybe you know this, but if you use e.g. Instagram, you allow exactly this. You grant Instagram:
“a non-exclusive, royalty-free, transferable, sub-licensable, worldwide license to host, use, distribute, modify, run, copy, publicly perform or display, translate, and create derivative works of your content.”
(Source: Instagram T&C.)
There are alternatives around and I’ve been a big fan of them. I used App.net — which unfortunately went out of business. I canceled Twitter, moved to Mastodon. And recently I tried Pixelfed. I do admire what the community and especially Daniel Supernault have built.
I wasn’t particularly happy with the app though. And this is what made me build Scatto.
A quick word on the Fediverse
Before explaining Scatto — for anyone who is not familiar with how Pixelfed (or the “Fediverse”) works: contrary to e.g. Instagram, content can be self-hosted. But self-hosted usually comes with fragmentation, thousands of small Instagrams, not exchanging content and information. The Fediverse with its versatile protocol makes all these instances talk to each other, making it feel like one big world instead of thousands of tiny villages, each not being aware of the world.
There are in fact 43 thousand of them, connecting 1.2 million active accounts and users with each other. (Source: FediDB.)
What’s also nice to know: you can take your stuff and move to a different village whenever you want. Your messages and content stay yours.
What’s Scatto?
Scatto is Italian for snapshot and it is a native iOS app that works with any Pixelfed instance — or you choose scatto.social as your home instance to host your content.
Contrary to current iOS apps supporting Pixelfed, this app supports video, push (if you use Scatto as instance), and upload is fast. And as of version 2.2.6 it also supports Stories.
This app would not have been possible without the great work of so many people. Actually it was built on Impressia, an existing app. And obviously Scatto is open source, just like Impressia and Pixelfed are. So if you have suggestions, ideas or if you would like to build your own app — feel free.
How Scatto compares
Here is how Scatto compares to the other Pixelfed iOS apps, as of August 2026.
- ✓ Supported
- ~ Partial
- ✗ Not supported
- — Not documented
| Feature | Scattov2.9.2 | Impressiav3.3.0 | Pixelfedofficial | Pixelixv2.0.0 | PixelNestv0.24 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Media & video | |||||
| Photo posting | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Video uploadrecord & from library | ✓90 s cap | ✗photo-only | ~separate Loops app | — | ✓ |
| In-timeline video playback | ✓muted autoplay | ✗ | ~ | — | ~ |
| Posting & reliability | |||||
| Background & resumable uploadsurvives leaving compose | ✓retry + notify | ✗ | ✗ | — | — |
| Draft save & resume | ✓ | ✗ | — | — | — |
| Social & discovery | |||||
| Stories | ✓off by default | ✗ | ✓ | ✗ | ✗ |
| Likes, boosts & bookmarks | ✓ | ✓ | ~likes | ~likes + collections | ~likes |
| Collectionsbrowse, fill & edit your own | ✓since 2.9.0 · new ones made on the web | ✗ | ~browse only | — | — |
| Direct messages | ✓since 2.8.0 · one-to-one | ✗ | ✓ | ✗ | ✗ |
| Accounts & platform | |||||
| Multiple accounts | ✓ | ✓ | ✗ | — | ✓ |
| Push notifications | ✓dedicated relay | ✓ | ✗ | — | — |
| Open source | ✓Apache 2.0 | ✓Apache 2.0 | ✓ | — | — |
A dash means the capability isn’t documented in the app’s public listing — it may still exist. Competitor data reflects App Store listings and official sites as of August 2026. Sources: Pixelfed, Impressia, Pixelix, PixelNest.
Give it a shot
Enough talking — why don’t you give it a shot. Sign up on scatto.social, share your moments with others. Get the Scatto iOS app and enjoy.