Open Source Community & Social Software
Community & Social software provides platforms for hosting forums, social networks, and news aggregators. These tools enable the creation of decentralized spaces where users share posts, media, and discussion threads. This type of software serves individuals and organizations that need to manage their own member directories and interaction logs. By self-hosting these apps, you avoid reliance on proprietary algorithms and keep your chat history and social connections on your own hardware. These tools allow you to federate with other servers to expand your reach without using corporate platforms.
This page lists 54 open source tools in the Community & Social category. The most popular are Mastodon, Discourse and RSSHub. Most use the AGPL-3.0 or Apache-2.0 license, and 45 offer an official Docker image.
Mastodon
Host a federated social network where users share posts, media, and interact across ActivityPub servers.
Discourse
A community platform for hosting online forums with real time chat and customizable discussion spaces.
RSSHub
Generate RSS feeds from various websites and social media platforms that do not provide them natively.
Glance
A self-hosted dashboard that aggregates RSS feeds, social media posts, and system monitoring into one interface.
lichess.org
A free online chess game server focused on realtime gameplay and ease of use.
Bluesky
A decentralized social network built on the AT Protocol to provide user control over data and experience.
Komi Store
Browse, discover, and install open source software releases from GitHub, Codeberg, and Forgejo on one platform.
FreshRSS
A self-hosted news aggregator for managing and reading RSS and Atom feeds in one place.
Lemmy
A decentralized link aggregator and forum that connects independent communities through the ActivityPub protocol and fediverse.
diaspora*
A privacy-aware distributed social network that allows users to own their data across federated servers.
Misskey
A federated social media platform for microblogging that supports decentralized communication across different server instances.
Fluxer
An instant messaging and VoIP platform for communities featuring Markdown support, voice and video calls, and self-hosting.
Fluent Reader
A desktop application for aggregating and reading RSS feeds with support for external synchronization services.
Miniflux
A minimalist and opinionated feed reader that focuses on speed, privacy, and a distraction-free reading experience.
RSS-Bridge
Generates web feeds for websites that do not provide their own RSS or Atom feeds.
NewsBlur
A personal news reader and social network that uses training to filter and highlight RSS feeds.
Pixelfed
A decentralized photo sharing platform featuring chronological feeds and ActivityPub federation for sharing images across the fediverse.
Remark42
A self-hosted, privacy-focused comment engine for embedding discussions into blogs, articles, and other websites.
Isso
A lightweight commenting server that allows website owners to host their own comment sections using SQLite.
WriteFreely
A minimalist, Markdown-based publishing platform designed for distraction-free writing and the creation of federated communities.
Synapse
A homeserver implementation for the Matrix open standard for secure and interoperable real-time communications.
Stringer
A self-hosted RSS reader focused on privacy and simplicity without social recommendations or tracking algorithms.
yarr
A web-based feed aggregator available as a desktop application or a self-hosted personal server.
CommaFeed
A self-hosted RSS reader that provides a centralized way to manage and read web feeds.
Redlib
A private front-end for browsing Reddit without ads, tracking, or the requirement of JavaScript.
Ergo
A modern IRC server that integrates daemon, services framework, and bouncer functionality into one application.
OpenStreetMap
A Ruby on Rails application providing the web interface and API for a collaborative world map.
BookWyrm
A federated social reading platform for tracking books, writing reviews, and discovering recommendations through decentralized communities.
Quiet
A peer-to-peer team chat that syncs messages directly between devices over Tor without central servers.
Loomio
Collaborative decision making tool designed for organizations to reach consensus and manage group discussions.
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