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Bonfire vs Elgg: catalog facts
Bonfire	Elgg
Free Self-hosting is free; cooperative hosting is also offered.	Free Free and open source.
Web, Self-hosted	Self-hosted
Federated with the open social web Modular building blocks for different community needs	Granular access control for private networks and intranets Extensive plugin and theme system
Self-hosting needs some sysadmin experience Smaller ecosystem than Mastodon	Building a polished site often needs PHP development Requires a PHP and MySQL server
Self-hosted, Hosted service	Self-hosted
Open source	Open source
License not stated	License: GPL-2.0
Not stated if an account is needed	Not stated if an account is needed
Not stated if it works offline	Not stated if it works offline
Official website Full listing and sources Checked September 23, 2026	Official website Full listing and sources Checked October 2, 2026

Catalog facts only. Anything “not stated” is unconfirmed. Check full listings for details.