Smithereen
A self-hosted federated social network server with friends, walls and groups, using ActivityPub.
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About Smithereen
Smithereen is a social network server modelled on the classic friends-and-walls style of sites like VK, rather than a microblogging timeline. Users add friends, post on each other's walls and join groups, and the server federates with other ActivityPub software across the fediverse.
It is written in Java and ships with a Dockerfile and docker-compose setup for self-hosting. The code is released into the public domain under the Unlicense. It suits people who want to run a traditional social network for a community while staying connected to the wider fediverse.
Strengths
- Friends, walls and groups instead of a microblog feed
- Federates with other ActivityPub servers
- Docker and docker-compose setup included
- Public domain licence
Limitations
- You need to run and maintain your own server
- Smaller community than Mastodon or other major fediverse servers
Details
- Pricing
- FreeFree and released into the public domain under the Unlicense.
- License
- Unlicense
- Developer
- Grishka
- Platforms
- Self-hosted
- How it runs
- Self-hosted
- Best suited for
- Communities that want a self-hosted VK-style social network on the fediverse
- Categories
- Social networks
- Last verified
- Added
- Provenance
- Facts checked against the developer's own pages and store listings, 1 sources on file.
Alternatives to Smithereen
Compare allSoftware that can replace Smithereen for an important use case, and what changes if you switch.
Friendica
Federated social platform that bridges to Mastodon, diaspora*, email and RSS.
Friendica is a PHP platform with groups, events and photo albums that also bridges to diaspora*, email and RSS, though its interface is dated and dense.
Hubzilla
An open-source, self-hosted fediverse platform for social networking, publishing and collaboration with nomadic identity.
Hubzilla adds nomadic identity, files, calendars, wikis and fine access control to self-hosted social networking, which makes it more complex to run than Smithereen.
Mastodon
Federated microblogging server with no algorithmic feed.
Mastodon swaps friends, walls and groups for a chronological microblogging feed on a much larger ActivityPub network, under the AGPL-3.0 licence rather than public domain.
diaspora*
Decentralised social network built on independently run pods.
diaspora* uses aspects to control who sees each post, but it does not speak ActivityPub, so it does not federate with Mastodon or other fediverse servers.
Bonfire
An open-source, federated platform for building a community space that connects to the open social web.
Bonfire offers modular building blocks for community spaces on the open social web, with self-hosted or cooperative hosting, and suits organisations that want to govern their own space.
Streams
A self-hosted decentralised social server with nomadic identity and fine-grained permissions over who sees what.
Streams is a PHP server with nomadic identity and fine-grained permissions over who sees content, and its documentation lives mainly inside the repository.
Misskey
Feature-rich fediverse server with reactions, drive storage and theming.
Misskey provides custom reactions, a file drive and deep theming, but it is heavier to run and most of its documentation is in Japanese.
Similar software
Related functionality, not necessarily a direct replacement.
Lemmy
Federated link aggregator and discussion platform.
Mobilizon
A federated, open-source platform for creating, sharing and finding events and organising groups.
Pixelfed
Federated photo sharing platform with no ads or algorithm.
Mbin
A self-hosted federated content aggregator with voting, discussion threads and microblogging for the fediverse.
GoToSocial
A lightweight self-hosted ActivityPub social network server written in Go.
