Friendica – A Decentralized Social Network

Mastodon gets all the attention but Friendica's federation story is actually broader, it speaks ActivityPub, Diaspora, and OStatus in the same node, so your contacts don't all have to be on the same protocol, that interop layer is undersold.

I’m interested in self-hosting a small social network for my family and close friends. Something to get us off facebook/instagram. If anybody is more familiar with the options, is this what you’d recommend?

Wow, this is a blast from the past! I haven't touched nor done anything on Friendica since like 2014/2015! (Yes, this is one of the grand daddy of the original fediverse social platforms before the name "fediverse" was even a thing...like Gnu Social and status.net old!) Good on them that they're still going strong!

Anybody have familiarity with Friendica to know how it stacks against the common pitfalls listed here?

https://www.noemamag.com/the-last-days-of-social-media/

Seems like it maybe suffers from the "fiefdom" / portability issue that other platforms struggle with, but I haven't looked closely.

I tried it sometime ago. I liked the interface but haven't found much of a community around it. It is very unfortunate that diaspora did not thrive earlier.

I tried to host this a few years ago, but it fell through because there wasn't enough documentation. I wonder if the documentation is more comprehensive now?

Finally one project with php and mysql that I can throw on a cheap shared hosting. No docker of node_modules fuckup

This is one of the least convincing homepages I've ever seen. It doesn't help that there are no x margins at the largest media query. In fact nothing about this page encourages me to spend more than one second looking at it.

“Military grade encryption”…???

What does this even mean? I’ve scoured the website, their wiki, their faq, the past hn convo… too no avail!

A substitution cypher was considered “military grade” for millennia

I'm increasingly unsure if this is something to aspire for. I make an effort to only follow people I know, and I turn off algorithmic feeds on social media, but it doesn't matter because the people I know routinely reshare made-up political bait and AI slop that's coming from the broader ecosystem.

This sucks and there's no way to push back on that. First, if you do it too much, you're just a "reply guy" - you become a part of the same suckiness of social media that you're trying to push back against. Second, the near-universal reaction you get is "maybe these specific immigrants were not eating pets, but you gotta agree with my broader concern about immigration". This just an example, the reaction has its equivalent for all sides of the political spectrum. We just like to read stuff that aligns with our political identity and beliefs. The pursuit of truth is a distant second.

I think that for social networks or forums to be at least somewhat healthy, they need to be small, specifically to limit the interactions you have with complete strangers and content that doesn't interest you at all. If you open up the ecosystem too much, it devolves into some flavor of Facebook.

I guess that one day soon we will have a Claw that just pumps information between all the different social networks.

I tried it sometime ago. I liked the interface but haven't found much of a community around it. It is very unfortunate that diaspora did not thrive earlier.

Anybody have familiarity with Friendica to know how it stacks against the common pitfalls listed here?

https://www.noemamag.com/the-last-days-of-social-media/

Seems like it maybe suffers from the "fiefdom" / portability issue that other platforms struggle with, but I haven't looked closely.

I have a forum I self-hosted for friends and family, they have their own login I gave them, it typically have 3-4 posts a week or something, at the very least one post from me as I have a "What I've been up to this week" thread. Seems to work out OK, and is probably as private as you can have something on the public internet.

I’d recommend installing a Pleroma server. It speaks ActivityPub and you can use any of the nice Mastodon apps with it. I've run a Mastodon server for the last 9 years, and wouldn't recommend Pleroma over it for a large many-user instance, but it's relatively tiny and lightweight for a personal server. You can configure it not to talk to the rest of the Fediverse so that it remains your friendly, isolated silo.

I tossed together a mattermost server. It’s effectively a slack cove and works pretty great.

If you also want to host or build interesting social apps, you should definitely do an isolated atproto / Bluesky service! https://blueskydirectory.com/

As for actually doing this... running a PDS and relay isn't that hard, and the red dwarf web client is online and can be configured to point to whatever appview you want. There's significantly less experience running your own appview, but there are options & folks are happy to help.

You could use this: https://github.com/Qbix/Platform

Example: https://freecities.app

Video demos: https://vimeo.com/1141492621/23e8b84b8b

Disclaimer: I built it. Lovingly, over 15+ years.

I guess that one day soon we will have a Claw that just pumps information between all the different social networks.

Is that a good thing or a bad thing? I associate "claws" with bot spam but maybe it means something else.

Anyone who wants to do that doesn't need to use AI for it

Finally one project with php and mysql that I can throw on a cheap shared hosting. No docker of node_modules fuckup

Pleroma looks to be very twitter-y. I don’t feel twitter is a great model for a small tight-knit group. For a larger less familial group, it’s probably better suited.

Like, i’m thinking photo album sharing (twitter-like makes photos ephemeral, quickly disappearing on the timeline) and conversation (twitter threading has never been strong imo).

If you also want to host or build interesting social apps, you should definitely do an isolated atproto / Bluesky service! https://blueskydirectory.com/

I’ve used bluesky, and it’s very twitter-like. That doesn’t seem like the best model for a close-knit community. For larger ones, perhaps!

There are projects that make running independent atproto networks "easy": https://github.com/verdverm/testnet

I no longer recommend ATProto, in part because the public by default was a terrible choice. People prefer privacy, not anyone in the world able to read all of their activity. Bolting permissioned buckets on after the fact is not the way, it needs to be core to the protocol design.

I tried to host this a few years ago, but it fell through because there wasn't enough documentation. I wonder if the documentation is more comprehensive now?

Do we even need documentation with LLMs? :)

I tossed together a mattermost server. It’s effectively a slack cove and works pretty great.

+1 for Mattermost. I set up mine for family but it's ended up mostly being used by my bots for reporting things to various channels via webhooks.

It's been a decade, but I had a very similar experience with Mattermost. It would be, if perhaps not where I would end up today, then certainly where I would start looking.

“Military grade encryption”…???

What does this even mean? I’ve scoured the website, their wiki, their faq, the past hn convo… too no avail!

A substitution cypher was considered “military grade” for millennia

It seems to be made for nerds (and I say that kindly) and not potential users. It’s way too tech blurb and not enough show what you getting into.

Anyone who wants to do that doesn't need to use AI for it

Is that a good thing or a bad thing? I associate "claws" with bot spam but maybe it means something else.

You can use any technology for good and for bad.

In this case, pumping around information so social networks appear to be one unified system is a good thing because you don't have to visit them all to check if there are new posts, etc. and you can avoid getting caught in an algorithm.

You could use this: https://github.com/Qbix/Platform

Example: https://freecities.app

Video demos: https://vimeo.com/1141492621/23e8b84b8b

Disclaimer: I built it. Lovingly, over 15+ years.

I’ve used bluesky, and it’s very twitter-like. That doesn’t seem like the best model for a close-knit community. For larger ones, perhaps!

Pleroma looks to be very twitter-y. I don’t feel twitter is a great model for a small tight-knit group. For a larger less familial group, it’s probably better suited.

Like, i’m thinking photo album sharing (twitter-like makes photos ephemeral, quickly disappearing on the timeline) and conversation (twitter threading has never been strong imo).

If you were going for a social-media-y experience, I'd not recommend Pleroma (or Akkoma which is the less problematic fork) because dealing with Erlang+Elixir is a massive pain in the arse. You'd want GotoSocial[0] (single binary, reasonably straightforward), snac[1] (haven't tried it but fedimeteo runs a whole bunch of instances successfully), or one of the other small servers (Takahē, bovine, etc.)

[0] https://gotosocial.org

[1] https://codeberg.org/grunfink/snac2

+1 for Mattermost. I set up mine for family but it's ended up mostly being used by my bots for reporting things to various channels via webhooks.

There are projects that make running independent atproto networks "easy": https://github.com/verdverm/testnet

Do we even need documentation with LLMs? :)

The LLMs need documentation

It's been a decade, but I had a very similar experience with Mattermost. It would be, if perhaps not where I would end up today, then certainly where I would start looking.

Yeah, it’s been pretty seamless and I was able to import the full Slack history into it as well from a previous Slack instance. The only thing I found lacking was a good GIF plug-in, but I was able to cobble one together pretty easily.

You can use any technology for good and for bad.

It seems to be made for nerds (and I say that kindly) and not potential users. It’s way too tech blurb and not enough show what you getting into.

I think any federated social media that is going to replace the status quo needs to have solid (1) UX (2) privacy as the default

the "set it and forget it" Ai agents, largely driven by OpenClaw

[0] https://gotosocial.org

[1] https://codeberg.org/grunfink/snac2

GoToSocial looks interesting, i will probably spin one up to try it out! Still seems a little twitter-like, but worth a shot.

And as long as there is a docker container, i don’t really care what language it’s written in, tbh - tho that is sometimes useful as a signal of the code quality or other aspects

The LLMs need documentation

The LLMs might be able to put the mythical "the code is the documentation" into practice.

I think any federated social media that is going to replace the status quo needs to have solid (1) UX (2) privacy as the default

the "set it and forget it" Ai agents, largely driven by OpenClaw

GoToSocial looks interesting, i will probably spin one up to try it out! Still seems a little twitter-like, but worth a shot.

And as long as there is a docker container, i don’t really care what language it’s written in, tbh - tho that is sometimes useful as a signal of the code quality or other aspects

The LLMs might be able to put the mythical "the code is the documentation" into practice.

Decentralization

Decentralized architecture with no central authority or ownership.

Relationships can be made across any compatible system, creating a network of Internet scale made up of smaller sites.

Seamless wall-to-wall posts and remote comments, even across different network nodes.

Privacy

Access lists for every item.

Private conversation groups — on these pages all communications are restricted to group members.

One-to-one private messaging on supported protocols.

Optionally "expire" old content after a certain period of time.

Download your personal data. It all belongs to you.

Interoperability

Built-in support for ActivityPub (e.g. Funkwhale, Hubzilla, Mastodon, Pleroma, Pixelfed), OStatus (e.g. StatusNet, GNU social, Quitter) and diaspora* protocols.

Support for email contacts and communications (two-way) via IMAP4rev1/ESMTP.

Import arbitrary websites and blogs into your social stream via RSS/Atom feeds.

Support for other services via plugins.

Keep in contact with people you care about.

Posts

Write your thoughts, edit them if you want. Comment, Like and Dislike posts from your contacts.

Photos

Share your holiday photos, but only with people you want.

Events

Organize the next meeting of your reading group, or let everybody know about your cool party!

Profiles

Like in real life, have a public profile and private aspects only for your closest friends. Or keep everything private!

Try Friendica

Do you want to try Friendica but don't have the technical knowledge to install your server? You can create an account on one of the many servers out there which accept new users!

Have a look at the list of public servers

Free software — Free protocols

Friendica is free software and use free protocols.

Stack

PHP & MySQL

Run your personal Friendica node on shared hosts.

Friendica runs on PHP with MySQL as a database. If you can run WordPress, you can run Friendica.

Plugin

Extensible

Extensible via third-party plugins and themes.

Add functionality, personalize the look and feel, connect to third-party services.

Run your own server

Be part of the network, host a Friendica server for you, your family and your friends!

Installation guide

Last News

Friendica 2026.01 released

| 27. January 2026

We are very happy to announce the availability of the new stable release of Friendica “Blutwurz” 2026.01. In addition to several improvements and new features, this release contains fixes for security problems that Hrizi Bilel has notified us about. Thanks for your report! It also contains the first results of a accessibility review by Casey […]

Friendica at FOSDEM 2026

Tobias | 16. January 2026

We are excited to be part of the 2026 edition of the Social Web Devroom at FOSDEM with a short update on Friendica on Saturday @18:00 CET about what happened in 2025 with Friendica. Should you happen to be in Brussels at the weekend of the 31. Jan / 1. Feb and want to join […]

FOSDEM 2025

Tobias | 1. January 2025

38c3 with many Fediverse related meet-ups has just finished but we are already looking forward to meet at FOSDEM at the first weekend of February. Tobias from the Friendica devel team will give a talk about Friendica at FOSDEM 25 in the Social Web Devroom. Friendica – under the radar since 2010 is scheduled for […]

Friendica 2024.12 released

Tobias | 1. January 2025

We are very happy to announce the availability of the new stable release of Friendica “Interrupted Fern” 2024.12. In addition to several improvements and new features, this release contains the fix for the broken installation wizard. The highlights of Friendica 2024.12 are For details, please see the CHANGELOG file in the repository. What is Friendica […]

Next Friendica Release Candidate available

Tobias | 15. October 2024

The development cycle for the 2024.09 release enters the last stage before the stable release – today we have branched off the 2024.09 release candid branch. 2024.09-rc contains all the features of the stable release and is meant to test the new features, find some last rough edges and smooth out the path to the […]

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Friendica – A Decentralized Social Network

Discussion

Discussion

Decentralization

Privacy

Interoperability

Posts

Photos

Events

Profiles

Try Friendica

Free software — Free protocols

PHP & MySQL

Extensible

Run your own server

Last News

Friendica 2026.01 released

Friendica at FOSDEM 2026

FOSDEM 2025

Friendica 2024.12 released

Next Friendica Release Candidate available