For communities on FediForum Connect

Bluesky

Bluesky is social media as it should be. Find your community among millions of users, unleash your creativity, and have some fun again.

Social media is too important to be controlled by a few corporations. We’re building an open foundation for the social internet so that we can all shape its future.

Your timeline, your choice

Stay focused on your friend group, keep up-to-date on the latest news, or explore with an algorithm that learns what you like. On Bluesky, there’s a feed for that.

Control your scroll

Use powerful moderation lists, content filters, and more to control what ends up in your timeline. In the future, people and organizations will be able to use open tools to contribute even more directly to moderation.

Some of the old, all of the new

Social media used to be fun. Be your unique self and create with your friends, all while keeping tabs on what’s happening at a global scale.

What’s next is being built today

We’re building a foundation for connection that gives users a choice in their experience, creators independence from platforms, and developers the freedom to build. The future is bright.

The public deserves a thriving online commons. We’re committed to building this space and ensuring that your social network can never be bought by a single individual or organization. L Bluesky is an open network. With one account, you can access both an easy-to-use social network and a shared identity across the entire social internet.

Bonfire

Bonfire is a federated, open-source social platform designed to give communities real autonomy and participatory governance over their digital spaces. Bonfire Social 1.0 was released at the end of 2025.

Bonfire isn’t just another federated social app, it’s a modular framework for building digital spaces governed by communities. Bonfire Social is the first “flavour” to reach 1.0, and is a starting point for communities who want a space of their own, that’s locally governed and fully customisable, yet connected to the wider fediverse.

A flavour is a pre-configured bundle of extensions that defines which features are included, how they behave, and what defaults are in place. Besides Bonfire Social, other flavours like Open Science Network and Bonfire Community are already in development, and people can also create their own extensions and flavours.

From day one, Bonfire has been designed to go beyond microblogging. We see social networking as social infrastructure rather than just social media, and have experimented with extensions for coordinating tasks, exchanging resources, and more.

Features

Many features in Bonfire will feel familiar: feeds, profiles, following users, sharing posts, flagging or blocking content. Others might be new, like rich-text posts, fine-grained access control, and more:

Content, Feeds & Discussions

Custom feeds: Users can create their own custom feeds using a simple interface. No coding required. Filter and sort content by type, circle, date, engagement level, source instance, and more. Save presets and choose which ones appear in your sidebar and in what order.
Long-form publishing: Read and write in-depth articles directly in Bonfire, with a rich text editor, title, and cover image support. Articles from federated blogging platforms appear seamlessly in your feed.
Feed presets for different content types: Dedicated feed presets for articles, events, and books, with sorting options like most liked or most replied.
Follow hashtags: Discover and join conversations by following hashtags, bringing relevant posts into your feed without needing to follow specific people.
Replies in feeds: Choose how replies display in your feed: show the parent post, the original thread starter, or just a label.
Nested discussions: Threaded conversations where replies can branch into focused sub-threads without losing context. Ideal for deep discussions, collaborative work, or following a conversation’s collective train of thought.
Scheduled posts: Plan ahead and publish posts at a set time.
Configurable dashboard widgets: Set up your homepage with widgets like trending links, recent articles, and suggested profiles, arranged by drag and drop.
RSS/Atom feeds: Subscribe to Bonfire feeds via any RSS reader.
Full-text search across posts, discussions, and profiles (users can opt out of indexing).
Translation: Works in Chrome browser via local engine; with LibreTranslate and DeepL API integration available as well.

People & Privacy

Circles: A circle is simply a list of people. Bonfire includes default circles like “local users” or “people I follow,” and you can define your own. Circles are private by default but can be shared.
Boundaries: Control who can see and interact with your content. For example, share a post with several circles but only allow replies from a specific one, or make a post public but invisible to specific people. Boundaries also interoperate with GoToSocial’s interaction controls and Mastodon’s quote authorisations.
Consent-based quoting: Use boundaries to define who can quote your post, who must request first, or who cannot request at all. Give or withdraw consent at any time.
Multiple profiles: One account can create multiple independent profiles, each with its own followers, content, and settings. Shared profiles can also be managed by multiple accounts, ideal for collectives or project teams.
Direct messages & private group discussions: With the same nested thread features as regular posts.
Custom roles and permissions: Distribute admin powers across community members.
Single sign-on: Bonfire supports OpenID Connect and OAuth2 authentication, with tested integrations for ORCID, Zenodo, and more. Bonfire can also act as an SSO provider itself.

Customisation

Themes: Ships with 16 colourful themes, but you can go further: design your own colours, fonts, and layout styles.
Extension management: Extensions can be enabled or disabled by admins and by users. For example, you can disable likes or boosts if they don’t suit your needs.
Private by default: New instances start as invite-only, giving admins control over membership from day one.

Federation, Interoperability & Data Portability

ActivityPub federation: Bonfire federates with Mastodon, PeerTube, Mobilizon, and many more. Protocol bridges also connect to Bluesky.
Federation status dashboard: Track outgoing and incoming federated activities, making it simpler to monitor federation health and troubleshoot issues.
Comprehensive migration: Export and import follows, blocks, circles/lists, bookmarks, likes, and boosts. A dedicated dashboard helps you follow the progress of data imports and migrations.
Post import: Bring your posts (and optionally their replies) with you when moving to Bonfire. Imported posts keep their original dates and links and are added to your timeline in the right order.
Community-curated blocklists: Import blocklists to ease moderation.

Work in progress / up next

These are either partially shipped, are in active development, or are our immediate next priorities with existing collaborations and prototyping:

Federated Groups: Groups are being co-designed with Princeton HCI, Knowledge Commons, Jacobin, and other pilot communities. Groups will have their own rules, roles, and shared moderation, and federate across Bonfire instances and other platforms.

End-to-End Encryption: Standards-based MLS encryption for DMs and group chats, developed with the Social Web Foundation and another ActivityPub platform to ensure interoperability.

Events & Calendars: Being co-created with LAUTI, designed to interoperate with Mobilizon, Gancio, and others. Supports recurring/nested events, multi-language content, and linking events to groups and places.

Geosocial Extension: Location-based activities (like events), with map views and location-based feeds.

Polls: Viewing and voting on remote polls works now; creating them locally is coming soon.

Mastodon-compatible API: Will allow interaction with Bonfire through dozens of existing fediverse clients on mobile and desktop.

ActivityPub client-to-server (C2S) API: Opening new possibilities for third-party app interaction.

Custom emoji support.

Future goals

These are longer-horizon items from our crowdfunding stretch goals, planned and with partners on board, but dependent on funding and further co-design:

Governance tools: Consent-based proposals, discussion, and decision-making tools, from quick polls to deep deliberation. Designed with Princeton HCI and UXDI, informed by sociocracy and tools like Ukuvota and Loomio. Adaptable methods rather than one-size-fits-all voting, with transparent records and federation support.

Shared moderation infrastructure: Cross-instance, cross-platform safety tooling co-designed with IFTAS, the ActivityPub Trust & Safety Taskforce, FediMod FIRES, Newsmast, and the Trust & Safety Foundation. The goal is coordinated triage and response without losing local autonomy.

Mutual aid networks: BuyNothing-style gifting with location-based offers/requests, resource matching, and interoperable accounting via ValueFlows. Co-designed with Mutual Aid Networks and Gifting with Integrity communities, with potential bridges to existing networks like TrashNothing.

Bluesky/ATproto interop & migration: Deep interoperability between Bonfire and ATproto. Built with A New Social (BridgyFed/Bounce).

Living memory (community archives): Federated community archives linking stories, places, events, and media. Initiated by “O alta poveste,” building on their years of R&D to bring participatory grassroots history to the federated web, with privacy and consent controls for contributors.

Gaia: Environmental sensor data, citizen science, and open datasets appearing in feeds as stories, visuals, and alerts. To be co-created with ecologists, artists, and sensor networks to turn environmental data into community dialogue and stewardship.

Collaboration infrastructure: Building upon the ValueFlows vocabulary to bring peer-to-peer coordination tools into Bonfire. We’d like to use Bonfire to coordinate development, track work, resources, and shared inventories through federated task lists and Kanban boards.

Tech stack

Built in Elixir on Erlang/OTP, Bonfire federates via ActivityPub and is licensed under the AGPL-3.0.

Backend language: Bonfire is written in Elixir, running on Erlang/OTP, a functional programming language designed for building reliable systems. The entire stack (including the web frontend) is built with Elixir.

Web framework & frontend: We use the Phoenix web framework with LiveView and Surface for UI components and views.

Database: Bonfire uses PostgreSQL for most data storage. We have a notable approach to primary keys: all Bonfire objects use a ULID as their primary key, and we use the Needle library to reference any object by its primary key without knowing what type it is beforehand. This allows things like following or liking many different types of objects (not just users or posts).

APIs: Some extensions use the Absinthe GraphQL library to expose an API. Bonfire leverages GraphQL for economic activities in particular (ValueFlows). We’re also building a Mastodon-compatible REST API and an ActivityPub client-to-server (C2S) API.

Federation: We maintain a standalone ActivityPub library for Elixir, which other projects can use to implement federation. It’s a modular implementation with a layered architecture and adapter pattern, so it can be integrated into various Elixir applications while handling the complexities of federation.

License: GNU Affero General Public License v3 (AGPL-3.0).

Extension architecture

The extension system is central to how Bonfire works. The code is broadly composed of namespaces, many of which are packaged as “extensions” living in separate git repositories and included in the app as dependencies. Each extension typically contains:

Data schemas and migrations
Context modules: Core logic, often organised around an object type
UI components and/or views
LiveHandlers: For handling frontend events in the backend
Config templates: Copied into an app flavour’s config

Extensions can be enabled or disabled both by instance admins and by individual users. A “flavour” is essentially a curated bundle of extensions with specific defaults and config, so creating a new flavour means choosing which extensions to include and how they’re configured.

Beyond extensions, we also build lower-level libraries extracted for general use outside Bonfire, like the ActivityPub library, the Needle/Pointers library for universal foreign keys, and various Elixir utilities.

Relevant links

Eurosky

Eurosky is your European home on the Atmosphere, a new world of social apps and services that all work together. It’s the future of the web.

How it works

Create your account

Pick your apps

Your account works across dozens of apps on the Atmosphere — Bluesky, Flashes, Tangled, and more. One login, everywhere.

Own your data

Your content lives on your own Personal Data Server. Switch apps anytime, take your followers with you, and stay in control.

We build shared digital infrastructure for a new generation of social apps — open, competitive, and built on European values. We’re here for the people who use these apps, and the builders who make them.

FediHost

FediHost makes it quick, easy, and affordable to get on the Fediverse with no technical knowledge required. Get started for just $4/month with a 7-day risk-free trial.

Tutorials & Blog

Extensive documentation and guides are available to help you understand and navigate the Fediverse. Check out the FediHost Blog and video tutorials to get started.

Manage Multiple Services

FediHost provides one interface to manage all your Fediverse instances letting you share resources across instances so you save as you grow.

Features

Pooled Storage: Storage is shared in a pool between your services. Storage can be added as needed so you only pay for what you use.
Dedicated PeerTube Encoders: Video encoding is handled by dedicated servers so even small instances can handle big encoding jobs.
Backups & Recovery: Daily backups and disaster recovery support.
Portable & Open: Export a complete copy of your instance from your dashboard. FediHost also assists with migrations from other hosting providers.
Self-Managed Environment Variables: Manage multiple variables yourself directly from your dashboard.
Refer & Save: Get credits for both you and your friends while helping to grow the Fediverse.
Custom Domains: Bring your own domain name for your instances.
Bilingual Support: Support and service in both English and French.

Custom Hosting

FediHost also hosts large custom instances for organizations, government, corporate, and non-profit clients.

Features and Benefits

Dedicated Server: FediHost offers managed instances on dedicated servers for organizations that require infrastructure to be isolated and secured.
Custom Code: Support for custom code, forks and configurations.
Bring Your Own S3: Support for clients who bring their own S3 buckets with direct storage and backups.
Additional Services: We partner with people to bring new managed hosting offerings to market. Currently we have tested and have the ability to host Pixelfed, PieFed, and BookWyrm.

Lemmy

Lemmy is a discussion platform that is truly free. You choose which communities to be a part of and which posts to see. You can use extensive blocking and filtering tools to sort and curate your feed. You are in control and not a corporation, so there is no tracking, advertising nor secret algorithms. And you can follow the development in the open, or get your own ideas included.

Upvotes and Threaded Comments

Posts can be upvoted or downvoted. The most interesting ones rise to the top. You can choose between different sort options. Threaded let you follow discussions easily. All the important features from Reddit are available.

Many different mobile Apps

Choose between more than a dozen apps for different platforms and preferences. There are apps for iOS, Android, Desktop and Web. Developers can create their own applications and tools using the open API.

Non-Commercial

Lemmy is not controlled by any company. There is no profit motive, no advertising and no user tracking. Moderation actions are transparent and can be viewed in the mod log. Development is all in the open, and funded solely by donations.

Decentralized and Selfhosted

The Lemmyverse consists of hundreds of interconnected servers operated by different people. You can also run Lemmy on your own server, using easy installation methods via Ansible or Docker. Resource usage is very low thanks to Rust, so it can run on a small Raspberry Pi or alongside other services.

Open Source

Lemmy is entirely open source. You can follow the development process and make suggestions for new features. You can also fork the code and implement new changes yourself.

Browse all Lemmy servers.

lemmy.world

About Lemmy.world

Lemmy.world is one of the many servers hosting the Lemmy software. It was started on June 1st, 2023 by @ruud@lemmy.world, who is also running https://mastodon.world, https://calckey.world and others.

Features

For features, see Lemmy.

Masto.host

Masto.host is a fully managed Mastodon hosting service. It handles installation, security updates, and upgrades, allowing customers to run their own Mastodon server without managing the technical infrastructure.

Customers can use their own domain or a free Masto.host subdomain.

Mastodon

Mastodon is the most widely used microblogging platform that supports ActivityPub.

mastodon.social

Mastodon.social is the original server instance of the Mastodon open source software (OSS), created and maintained by Mastodon GmbH. The team runs this server to provide a safe landing place for anyone, especially for newcomers to the social web, and as a reference implementation of the Mastodon software. Mastodon.social takes a strong stance against content and speech that does harm.

Mastodon.social is the largest Mastodon server, and the largest ActivityPub server as well.

NodeBB

NodeBB is next generation community forum software. It’s powerful, mobile-ready and easy to use.

Looking for a way to engage your followers, away from the noise and chaos of today’s “social” sites?

NodeBB takes the spirit and energy of the great online forum communities of old, and empowers it with powerful, mobile-ready and easy to use software.

Establish your own platform for real conversations. Start today!

NodeBB

NodeBB is next generation community forum software. It’s powerful, mobile-ready and easy to use.

Looking for a way to engage your followers, away from the noise and chaos of today’s “social” sites?

NodeBB takes the spirit and energy of the great online forum communities of old, and empowers it with powerful, mobile-ready and easy to use software.

Establish your own platform for real conversations. Start today!

Piefed

Federated, open-source, ad-free, and fully under your control. Build or join a community that reflects your values — no algorithms, no corporate overlords, no attention economy.

No ads, no tracking, no addictive algorithms — your feed is built by you.

Join our server at piefed.social or host your own for full control. Self-host or pick an instance aligned with your values.

Federated freedom. Posts on one server can be seen, shared, and discussed by users on any other server, too. Everything runs on open standards (ActivityPub), creating a diverse and billionaire-resistant ecosystem.

Open-source & developer-friendly. Python-powered and AGPL licensed — easy to customize and contribute.

social.coop

Surf

Surf, a browser for the open social web, gives people, publishers and creators a simple way to search for the conversations they care about or create feeds to build community around anything—from events to podcasts. Use Surf to see what people are saying on issues of the day, trends or topics you care about.

Create Surf Feeds for Your Community

People, publishers, organizations and communities can design a custom feed for themselves or others that share an interest. It takes just a few steps: Select +Create a Feed in the Surf Sidebar, name your feed, add a community hashtag and add sources like social profiles from Bluesky, Threads and Mastodon, YouTube channels, podcasts and RSS feeds. Your Surf feed can be shared on the web, serving as a resource for others or a dedicated space for conversations around any topic. Get started at https://surf.social.

Unite Community Conversations

Bring together the conversations happening across Bluesky, Mastodon, and federated Threads platforms by assigning a Community Hashtag to a Surf feed and posts from any of those networks, that use the hashtag, will show up in your feed. Now it doesn’t matter what platform your friends or fans like to use, you can see the whole community in one place.

Here’s a great one: https://allnet.surf.social/

WordPress.com

WordPress.com is a managed WordPress hosting platform operated by Automattic. It includes built-in ActivityPub support, so any WordPress.com site can join the Fediverse without extra setup or plugin management.

When ActivityPub is enabled, your site becomes a followable profile on the social web. People can follow your posts from ActivityPub-compatible platforms, while follower relationships remain tied to your domain.

Built-in moderation tools integrate with the existing WordPress comment system, making it easier to manage web and federated conversations in one familiar workflow.

WordPress.com handles hosting, security updates, and platform infrastructure so site owners can focus on publishing. Plans range from free to enterprise-level, with ActivityPub available on all plans.

For communities on FediForum Connect

Bluesky

Welcome to the social internet

Your timeline, your choice

Control your scroll

Some of the old, all of the new

What’s next is being built today

Bonfire

Bonfire

Features

Content, Feeds & Discussions

People & Privacy

Customisation

Federation, Interoperability & Data Portability

Work in progress / up next

Future goals

Tech stack

Extension architecture

Relevant links

Eurosky

How it works

Create your account

Pick your apps

Own your data

Our vision is for a thriving open social web for Europe

FediHost

Tutorials & Blog

Manage Multiple Services

Features

Custom Hosting

Features and Benefits

Lemmy

Upvotes and Threaded Comments

Many different mobile Apps

Non-Commercial

Decentralized and Selfhosted

Open Source

lemmy.world

About Lemmy.world

Features

Masto.host

Mastodon

mastodon.social

Social networking that’s not for sale.

NodeBB

NodeBB

Piefed

social.coop

Surf

Create Surf Feeds for Your Community

Unite Community Conversations

WordPress.com