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Smithereen vs Bonfire: catalog facts
Smithereen	Bonfire
Free Free and released into the public domain under the Unlicense.	Free Self-hosting is free; cooperative hosting is also offered.
Self-hosted	Web, Self-hosted
Friends, walls and groups instead of a microblog feed Federates with other ActivityPub servers	Federated with the open social web Modular building blocks for different community needs
You need to run and maintain your own server Smaller community than Mastodon or other major fediverse servers	Self-hosting needs some sysadmin experience Smaller ecosystem than Mastodon
Self-hosted	Self-hosted, Hosted service
Open source	Open source
License: Unlicense	License not stated
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 24, 2026	Official website Full listing and sources Checked September 23, 2026

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