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I’m interested in self-hosting a small social network for my family and close friends. Something to get us off facebook/instagram. If anybody is more familiar w

I’m interested in self-hosting a small social network for my family and close friends. Something to get us off facebook/instagram. If anybody is more familiar with the options, is this what you’d recommend?

embedding-shape 7mo ago
I have a forum I self-hosted for friends and family, they have their own login I gave them, it typically have 3-4 posts a week or something, at the very least one post from me as I have a "What I've been up to this week" thread. Seems to work out OK, and is probably as private as you can have something on the public internet.
EGreg 7mo ago
You could use this: https://github.com/Qbix/Platform https://github.com/Qbix/Platform Example: https://freecities.app https://freecities.app Video demos: https://vimeo.com/1141492621/23e8b84b8b https://vimeo.com/1141492621/23e8b84b8b Disclaimer: I built it. Lovingly, over 15+ years.
conception 7mo ago
I tossed together a mattermost server. It’s effectively a slack cove and works pretty great.
- throwanem 7mo ago
  It's been a decade, but I had a very similar experience with Mattermost. It would be, if perhaps not where I would end up today, then certainly where I would start looking.
  - conception 7mo ago
    Yeah, it’s been pretty seamless and I was able to import the full Slack history into it as well from a previous Slack instance. The only thing I found lacking was a good GIF plug-in, but I was able to cobble one together pretty easily.
- zimpenfish 7mo ago
  +1 for Mattermost. I set up mine for family but it's ended up mostly being used by my bots for reporting things to various channels via webhooks.
jauntywundrkind 7mo ago
If you also want to host or build interesting social apps, you should definitely do an isolated atproto / Bluesky service! https://blueskydirectory.com/ https://blueskydirectory.com/ As for actually doing this... running a PDS and relay isn't that hard, and the red dwarf web client is online and can be configured to point to whatever appview you want. There's significantly less experience running your own appview, but there are options & folks are happy to help.
- kennywinker 7mo ago
  I’ve used bluesky, and it’s very twitter-like. That doesn’t seem like the best model for a close-knit community. For larger ones, perhaps!
  - jauntywundrkind 7mo ago
    That you phrase it like that implies that you haven't used atproto very deeply, and aren't aware of how versatile the protocol is, and how many apps it hosts. I linked you a directory of apps already! You could use any of these! You'd have to set up your own instances to use it on a private service but that's doable, and since you'd have the main atproto systems up, it would be much lower lift than you might expect! PDSls let's you browse people's PDS. This shows you what apps I've used! It's quite versatile, capable of hosting all manner of social systems. There's nothing else that will give you the ability to build a neat rich social community like this: everything else has specific purpose and intent, and you are rather stuck with that design, but atproto is versatile and generic and ready to form whatever kind of social systems you want with it. To look at what's here and say atproto is very twitter like is to barely scratch the surface. https://pdsls.dev/at://jauntywk.bsky.social https://pdsls.dev/at://jauntywk.bsky.social
- verdverm 7mo ago
  There are projects that make running independent atproto networks "easy": https://github.com/verdverm/testnet https://github.com/verdverm/testnet I no longer recommend ATProto, in part because the public by default was a terrible choice. People prefer privacy, not anyone in the world able to read all of their activity. Bolting permissioned buckets on after the fact is not the way, it needs to be core to the protocol design.
kstrauser 7mo ago
I’d recommend installing a Pleroma server. It speaks ActivityPub and you can use any of the nice Mastodon apps with it. I've run a Mastodon server for the last 9 years, and wouldn't recommend Pleroma over it for a large many-user instance, but it's relatively tiny and lightweight for a personal server. You can configure it not to talk to the rest of the Fediverse so that it remains your friendly, isolated silo.
- kennywinker 7mo ago
  Pleroma looks to be very twitter-y. I don’t feel twitter is a great model for a small tight-knit group. For a larger less familial group, it’s probably better suited. Like, i’m thinking photo album sharing (twitter-like makes photos ephemeral, quickly disappearing on the timeline) and conversation (twitter threading has never been strong imo).
  - zimpenfish 7mo ago
    If you were going for a social-media-y experience, I'd not recommend Pleroma (or Akkoma which is the less problematic fork) because dealing with Erlang+Elixir is a massive pain in the arse. You'd want GotoSocial[0] (single binary, reasonably straightforward), snac[1] (haven't tried it but fedimeteo runs a whole bunch of instances successfully), or one of the other small servers (Takahē, bovine, etc.) [0] https://gotosocial.org https://gotosocial.org [1] https://codeberg.org/grunfink/snac2 https://codeberg.org/grunfink/snac2
    - kennywinker 7mo ago
      GoToSocial looks interesting, i will probably spin one up to try it out! Still seems a little twitter-like, but worth a shot. And as long as there is a docker container, i don’t really care what language it’s written in, tbh - tho that is sometimes useful as a signal of the code quality or other aspects
      - eniac111 7mo ago
        Heh, I've found this post while installing Gotosocial :D
janandonly 7mo ago
Let them all install Primal and run your own Nostr relay for the family. So long as they only connect to your relay, they only see each others messages and content. Primal also makes video and content sharing easy over Nostr.
stevenicr 7mo ago
Buddypress (free system that transforms free wordpress) - self hosted, is a reasonable option.
rapnie 7mo ago
When it comes to fediverse most ActivityPub servers focus on microblogging, and it is where interoperability works best. There are a number of good lists to consult. I would recommend checking projects for activity, quality, and governance, besides the features that matter to you, since "being part of the fediverse" is a moving target. https://delightful.coding.social/delightful-fediverse-experience/ https://delightful.coding.social/delightful-fediverse-experi... https://fedidb.com/apps https://fedidb.com/apps https://fediverse.party/en/miscellaneous/ https://fediverse.party/en/miscellaneous/
swampangel 7mo ago
Here's a good intro to the topic (not that I personally have put it into practice) https://runyourown.social/ https://runyourown.social/ It focuses on Mastodon but that's probably an artifact of when it was written.
trolleybus 7mo ago
From this perspective, Friendica is definitely the best choice, but be careful because the ergonomics are problematic to say the least In short, it's not the right software for a seventy-year-old mother, nor for Gen Z, who are no longer accustomed to using their opposable thumb except for scrolling on TikTok.

embedding-shape 7mo ago

I have a forum I self-hosted for friends and family, they have their own login I gave them, it typically have 3-4 posts a week or something, at the very least one post from me as I have a "What I've been up to this week" thread. Seems to work out OK, and is probably as private as you can have something on the public internet.

EGreg 7mo ago

You could use this: https://github.com/Qbix/Platform https://github.com/Qbix/Platform Example: https://freecities.app https://freecities.app Video demos: https://vimeo.com/1141492621/23e8b84b8b https://vimeo.com/1141492621/23e8b84b8b Disclaimer: I built it. Lovingly, over 15+ years.

conception 7mo ago

I tossed together a mattermost server. It’s effectively a slack cove and works pretty great.

throwanem 7mo ago
It's been a decade, but I had a very similar experience with Mattermost. It would be, if perhaps not where I would end up today, then certainly where I would start looking.
- conception 7mo ago
  Yeah, it’s been pretty seamless and I was able to import the full Slack history into it as well from a previous Slack instance. The only thing I found lacking was a good GIF plug-in, but I was able to cobble one together pretty easily.
zimpenfish 7mo ago
+1 for Mattermost. I set up mine for family but it's ended up mostly being used by my bots for reporting things to various channels via webhooks.

jauntywundrkind 7mo ago

If you also want to host or build interesting social apps, you should definitely do an isolated atproto / Bluesky service! https://blueskydirectory.com/ https://blueskydirectory.com/ As for actually doing this... running a PDS and relay isn't that hard, and the red dwarf web client is online and can be configured to point to whatever appview you want. There's significantly less experience running your own appview, but there are options & folks are happy to help.

kennywinker 7mo ago
I’ve used bluesky, and it’s very twitter-like. That doesn’t seem like the best model for a close-knit community. For larger ones, perhaps!
- jauntywundrkind 7mo ago
  That you phrase it like that implies that you haven't used atproto very deeply, and aren't aware of how versatile the protocol is, and how many apps it hosts. I linked you a directory of apps already! You could use any of these! You'd have to set up your own instances to use it on a private service but that's doable, and since you'd have the main atproto systems up, it would be much lower lift than you might expect! PDSls let's you browse people's PDS. This shows you what apps I've used! It's quite versatile, capable of hosting all manner of social systems. There's nothing else that will give you the ability to build a neat rich social community like this: everything else has specific purpose and intent, and you are rather stuck with that design, but atproto is versatile and generic and ready to form whatever kind of social systems you want with it. To look at what's here and say atproto is very twitter like is to barely scratch the surface. https://pdsls.dev/at://jauntywk.bsky.social https://pdsls.dev/at://jauntywk.bsky.social
verdverm 7mo ago
There are projects that make running independent atproto networks "easy": https://github.com/verdverm/testnet https://github.com/verdverm/testnet I no longer recommend ATProto, in part because the public by default was a terrible choice. People prefer privacy, not anyone in the world able to read all of their activity. Bolting permissioned buckets on after the fact is not the way, it needs to be core to the protocol design.

kstrauser 7mo ago

I’d recommend installing a Pleroma server. It speaks ActivityPub and you can use any of the nice Mastodon apps with it. I've run a Mastodon server for the last 9 years, and wouldn't recommend Pleroma over it for a large many-user instance, but it's relatively tiny and lightweight for a personal server. You can configure it not to talk to the rest of the Fediverse so that it remains your friendly, isolated silo.

kennywinker 7mo ago
Pleroma looks to be very twitter-y. I don’t feel twitter is a great model for a small tight-knit group. For a larger less familial group, it’s probably better suited. Like, i’m thinking photo album sharing (twitter-like makes photos ephemeral, quickly disappearing on the timeline) and conversation (twitter threading has never been strong imo).
- zimpenfish 7mo ago
  If you were going for a social-media-y experience, I'd not recommend Pleroma (or Akkoma which is the less problematic fork) because dealing with Erlang+Elixir is a massive pain in the arse. You'd want GotoSocial[0] (single binary, reasonably straightforward), snac[1] (haven't tried it but fedimeteo runs a whole bunch of instances successfully), or one of the other small servers (Takahē, bovine, etc.) [0] https://gotosocial.org https://gotosocial.org [1] https://codeberg.org/grunfink/snac2 https://codeberg.org/grunfink/snac2
  - kennywinker 7mo ago
    GoToSocial looks interesting, i will probably spin one up to try it out! Still seems a little twitter-like, but worth a shot. And as long as there is a docker container, i don’t really care what language it’s written in, tbh - tho that is sometimes useful as a signal of the code quality or other aspects
    - eniac111 7mo ago
      Heh, I've found this post while installing Gotosocial :D

janandonly 7mo ago

Let them all install Primal and run your own Nostr relay for the family. So long as they only connect to your relay, they only see each others messages and content. Primal also makes video and content sharing easy over Nostr.

stevenicr 7mo ago

Buddypress (free system that transforms free wordpress) - self hosted, is a reasonable option.

rapnie 7mo ago

When it comes to fediverse most ActivityPub servers focus on microblogging, and it is where interoperability works best. There are a number of good lists to consult. I would recommend checking projects for activity, quality, and governance, besides the features that matter to you, since "being part of the fediverse" is a moving target. https://delightful.coding.social/delightful-fediverse-experience/ https://delightful.coding.social/delightful-fediverse-experi... https://fedidb.com/apps https://fedidb.com/apps https://fediverse.party/en/miscellaneous/ https://fediverse.party/en/miscellaneous/

swampangel 7mo ago

Here's a good intro to the topic (not that I personally have put it into practice) https://runyourown.social/ https://runyourown.social/ It focuses on Mastodon but that's probably an artifact of when it was written.

trolleybus 7mo ago

From this perspective, Friendica is definitely the best choice, but be careful because the ergonomics are problematic to say the least In short, it's not the right software for a seventy-year-old mother, nor for Gen Z, who are no longer accustomed to using their opposable thumb except for scrolling on TikTok.