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Elgg vs Smithereen: catalog facts
Elgg	Smithereen
Free Free and open source.	Free Free and released into the public domain under the Unlicense.
Self-hosted	Self-hosted
Granular access control for private networks and intranets Extensive plugin and theme system	Friends, walls and groups instead of a microblog feed Federates with other ActivityPub servers
Building a polished site often needs PHP development Requires a PHP and MySQL server	You need to run and maintain your own server Smaller community than Mastodon or other major fediverse servers
Self-hosted	Self-hosted
Open source	Open source
License: GPL-2.0	License: Unlicense
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 October 2, 2026	Official website Full listing and sources Checked September 24, 2026

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