A full fediverse instance running on a simple shared host, in pure PHP, with no external dependencies. That is the idea behind Starling:
https://github.com/dfaria-eu/Starling/

#fediverse #activitypub #php #opensource

#opensource #office #sovereignty #europe #microsoft (bye bye) #privacy #fediverse #activitypub

Please share this. I hope it's the start of something big.

https://office.eu/

Again looking at running my own #Mastodon instance and seeing a ton of abandoned projects for lightweight, single-user #ActivityPub servers. Are there options that are actively maintained and ready for use? I've run #Pleroma before but don't actually need a web frontend. Happy to @phanpy and that's it. Suggestions, anyone?

Here’s an interesting thought experiment.

Way back in the 1980s and 90s, Usenet was a sorta-federated discussion forum (using the NNTP protocol) that was very popular. It still exists and is distributing 400 million messages each day (mostly spam and trash as far as I can tell). Hard numbers are difficult to come by but it seems like Usenet is capable of significantly higher throughput. Why is that?

The big thing holding ActivityPub back is the fan-out. You know the story - someone with 50,000 followers causes their instance to send up to 50,000 HTTP POSTs every time they click the little spinny star or reply to something.

It’s basically a hub-and-spoke network topology. Except everyone takes turns being the hub, ideally, but not much in practice. And in this topology, the hubs are where the strain and bottlenecks are.

Back in the 1980s they had computers literally 1000 times slower than ours and network links to match. So how did they do this? With a peer to peer network topology! When a new post is made, they don’t send it to everyone they just send it to a handful of other servers. Those servers in turn forward the post on to a handful of other peers, and so on, until the whole network receives the post. No individual server is a single point of failure and none has to bear the full brunt of orchestrating it all.

Let’s do a picture. A creates a post and sends it to B and D.

A ─ B ─ C  
 \      /  
   ─ D ─  

B sends it on to C.

Meanwhile D sends it on the C also but C already has it so does nothing more. IRL this would be a much larger mesh. Who peers with who can be a mixture of manual selection and random spiciness.

Posts can arrive out of order so each server would need to wait until the dependencies between posts are resolved before making them available to clients. That’s a bit tricky.

In the ActivityPub-over-NNTP idea, each NNTP post would be a thin wrapper around a data structure containing the HTTP headers (with signature and digest) and JSON that a normal HTTP POSTed Activity would have. Servers would use NNTP to distribute the activities and upon receiving one they’d POST it to their own /inbox to run the usual ActivityPub processing that their AP instance does.

{  
  "headers": {  
    "Signature": "...",  
    "Digest": "...",  
    "Date": "..."  
  },  
  "activity": { ... normal ActivityPub JSON ... }  
}  

In this way there is no need to rewrite ActivityPub semantics as only the transport layer changes. Our existing inbox logic remains intact.

NNTP comes with a lot of historical baggage so we’d probably need to evolve the protocol a bit. Maybe use HTTP requests (even http2 streams?) instead of the original line-oriented text protocol using raw TCP sockets. But you get the idea.

Thoughts?

Yes, #HolosSocial is far from perfect, but everything is being done to improve the UX. I still believe in this project because it offers a lot of perspectives, and bad behavior can be fixed.
Thank you to all the people trusting this project. Even if it fails, I am pretty sure it will help push #ActivityPub further.

Turns out making an #activityPub server is not the work of a few hours.

I may have over-promised.

I think I'll finally build an #activityPub server.

I know some ActivityPub devs feel jealous of AtProto’s success.

I’ve felt it too.

But really, we shouldn’t.

Every serious step toward decentralization is a win for the open social web.

With tools like Bridgy from @anewsocial, we can stay connected across protocols and keep building a more open future together.

If you really believe in empowering humanity, then this isn’t competition, it’s momentum.

#SocialWeb #BuildBridges #ActivityPub #ATProto

Fedibook groups just got a major rewrite.

Groups now work as a ActivityPub group actors — meaning members from Mastodon, Pixelfed, and other Fediverse platforms can join and participate, not just Fedibook users.

Invite a @mastodon.social friend to your group, they accept the follow request, and group posts start appearing in their home timeline. They can post back via DM. It just works.

On Fedibook, groups looks just like that face-thing.

Jump over to my blog to read more
https://sindum.dk/fedibook-groups/

#Fedibook #ActivityPub #Fediverse

Alt...

Screenshut of Fedibook group UI

Announcing Mitra Mini v0.1.0

Mitra Mini is an ActivityPub client that implements nomadic identity. It has become stable enough that I decided to cut the first release.

The basic features have been implemented: posts, reposts, likes. For more information, check the project's readme:

https://codeberg.org/silverpill/minimitra

It all started nearly four years ago with a vague idea that linking cryptographic keys to #ActivityPub actors could unlock decentralized identity in Fediverse. Eventually, the solution was discovered, and implemented by several projects, but these implementations were servers, not clients. Now there is finally a client, and the design has been proven to work well.

#NomadicIdentity

My little #ActivityBot now supports #ActivityPub #Hashtags!

Friends, if you haven't already, it would be a big favour to me if you could enable tags.pub to boost your public tagged posts.

Just search for @_followback in your Mastodon UI. Click the follow button there. (Don't try to follow from the profile page; it doesn't work yet.)

It will follow you back, and when you make a post with a hashtag in it, the server will boost your post from the appropriate hashtag.

#tagspub #hashtags #activitypub

#Holos started at the end of 2025. A full #ActivityPub server now runs on your phone, with the ability to use your own domain as your identity, #E2EE DMs via Signal Protocol, zero-knowledge encrypted backup, #ActivityPub media served from your own cloud, a tailored timeline based on your interests thanks to #HolosDiscover, and the ability to switch views depending on your mood or the content you want to browse. Thank you for your feedback and support that helped to go through these steps.

I've had an inspiring first week with Fedibook. Your feedback has been truly inspiring. It started as a provocation and an experiment — but I have decided to turn this into a proper open source project. My first ever!

If you tested on dev1.fedibook.dk — come to https://fedibook.net. The new showcase instance where we will run the latest released code. Or even better, run your own instance and friend request me @sindum@fedibook.net.

I'm heading off on holiday, but I wanted to share what I'm hoping we can build together:

Your Friendly Neighborhood Social Network... One that is there for you when you want to take a moment to connect and follow up. That shows your feed from friends, follows and groups. Nothing more. With a UI that focuses on that rather than keeping your attention.

Jump over to my blog for this post with a little more detail.

https://sindum.dk/come-join-fedibook-net/

#fedibook #fediverse #activitypub @shellsharks #YourFriendlyNeighborhoodSocialNetwork

Can someone point me to a good explainer article about #ActivityPub protocol, #Mastodon, and the #Fediverse that I can share with my tech industry daughter who is fed up with Instagram? Thanks!

RE: https://mastodon.social/@HolosSocial/116302845964923188

With #Holos, you can have your identity on your own domain. No server? A simple CNAME record is enough. Already have a server? Point a subdomain to handle #ActivityPub traffic and serve a static JSON file on your root domain.

This is a step toward the same sovereignty #Nostr offers with cryptographic identities, but staying in the #ActivityPub ecosystem you already know.

fedicat boosted

Holos Social » 🌐 2026-03-27
@HolosSocial@mastodon.social

#Holos will support custom root domains tomorrow. You'll be able to use @you@yourdomain.com as your identity while #ActivityPub traffic is routed through a subdomain.
With a single user, a simple static json file will be enough on your root domain.

PS: if you already use a subdomain, it will work without extra work.

#HolosSocial

Week in Fediverse 2026-03-27

Servers

- Vernissage Server v1.32.0
- snac v2.91
- Lemmy v0.19.17
- Mitra v5.0.0
- Gush! v0.0.33
- Mastodon v4.5.8
- Hubzilla v11.2.0
- Mobilizon v5.2.3
- NodeBB v4.10.1
- appy v0.5.0
- Madblog v1.3.0
- A Redesign for Profiles (Mastodon)
- TinyAP: Tiny ActivityPub Micro-blogging
- oeee-cafe: The federated and networked oekaki board
- ActivityPub bots: ActivityPub / Mastodon compatible instance to quickly create and deploy multiple bots
- ProFed: Federated professional network

Clients

- Holos v1.1.0
- Fedilab v3.37.2
- Pachli v3.5.0
- Mastodon for iOS v2026.02
- Summit v1.80.0
- Blorp v1.11.0
- Aria v1.4.8
- Announcing Nicolium v0.1.0
- Hackers' Pub Android

Tools and Plugins

- Poduptime v6.3.1
- Enable Mastodon Apps v1.5.0 (WordPress plugin)

For developers

- Fedify v2.1.0
- APx v0.22.0
- Federails v0.8.0

Articles

- Dipping a Toe into the Fediverse (Again)
- Can we have a more “social” media?
- Mastodon (Bluesky/X/Instagram) is not the right platform for posting long-form content (a blog is)
- FediMod FIRES on building better and decentralised social media applications

-----

#WeekInFediverse #Fediverse #ActivityPub

Previous edition: https://mitra.social/objects/019d0d0a-2958-a430-8db0-95350f8495e5

#Holos will support custom root domains tomorrow. You'll be able to use @you@yourdomain.com as your identity while #ActivityPub traffic is routed through a subdomain.
With a single user, a simple static json file will be enough on your root domain.

PS: if you already use a subdomain, it will work without extra work.

#HolosSocial

Piece on Masto being TechCrunched today: https://techcrunch.com/2026/03/26/mastodon-is-making-its-decentralized-social-network-easier-to-use-with-its-latest-revamp

#Mastodon #fediverse #ActivityPub

What just shipped in 3.10.0:

• Fedify 2.1.0 (RFC 9421 signatures, onUnverifiedActivity, GoToSocial fix)
• Removed as:Endpoints workaround (6 fewer lines of patching)
• FEP-5feb: indexable + discoverable on actor
• FEP-f1d5: Rich NodeInfo (visible in the curl output above)
• FEP-4f05: Tombstone responses for deleted posts
• FEP-3b86: Activity Intent links in WebFinger for remote interactions
• FEP-8fcf: Outbound collection sync (was already there, now documented)
• Unverified Delete handler for orphaned actors

🔗 https://rmendes.net/notes/2026/03/26/83043

My ongoing #ActivityPub projects in order of priority, for anyone waiting for something:

– Interaction policy / reply controls FEP: highest priority, stalled for the past few weeks due to other responsibilities
– @encyclia: probably migrating from Deno+Fresh to Node+Hono for @fedify 2.0, boring infra work
– Updating @fedidevs starter packs for compatibility with @loops and @Mastodon packs: on warm hold, will get to it, but vainly hoping someone will write a Python lib for it before I have to 🙃

Would you like to run your own Mastodon (ActivityPub) bot and don't know how?

Try my tool: https://github.com/nekromoff/mastodon-bots

Easy to install, easy to deploy a bot. And then your bot can do whatever you want - create posts, communicate with people, post images or just sit there doing nothing and being a bot.

#mastodon #activityPub #bots #bot #php #webdev

@silverpill

@delta might like to have a word with you. 😅

I did not try to make the literal comparison between a person who emails or creates email-related software with #fediverse AP solution development.

What I did want to point out was how blurred the lines are in the #ActivityPub fediverse between stuff that is the protocol, and stuff that is solution development i.e. app-specific / domain-specific.

The anti-patterns I listed are encountered by any newcomer dev who takes an interest in creating fedi apps & services, and is faced with much more than they bargained for when reading the AS/AP specs.

It forms a barrier to entry, decrease in attractiveness to create fedi apps, and devs leaving the space for greener pastures (e.g. to #ATProto or various still-less-mature-than-fedi #P2P protocols)

@silverpill

There are a couple of #ActivityPub projects that focus on providing the good tools that abstract away the complexities of wire-level network comms, and help free the hands of a solution developer to focus more directly on what people need, instead of on plumbing and Babylonian speech confusion of how things fit together. I try to emphasize these projects, e.g. @fedify by listing them higher in the https://delightful.coding.social curated lists.

But their challenge is to offer a kind of reverse to browser quirks mode. Web browsers can handle about any malformed HTML a person throws at it, and still manage to turn that into machine processable form, and make the most of it.

As a fedi toolkit builder you almost need to do the opposite. Focus on offering comprehensive and intuitive API's and functionality to solution developers, and translate it into wire chaos that constitutes the fediverse-protocol-of-the-day.

I’ve just created a PR to allow arbitrary Unicode usernames in #flohmarkt, in a safe fashion: https://codeberg.org/flohmarkt/flohmarkt/pulls/921

given https://github.com/mastodon/mastodon/issues/8417 I assume this might make @Edent happy :)

#fediverse #activitypub

New post: Can we have a more “social” media?

https://profpatsch.de/essays/a-more-social-media

On advertising, the Fediverse, and what a more human social web could look like.

Special mentions: @smallcircles, @phnt, @happy-programming

#fediverse #activitypub #socialmedia #writing #essay

With the news of the secret $100 million investment in Bluesky by Bain, I keep thinking about protocols.

Maybe the perceived "drawbacks" of #ActivityPub are ultimately strengths?

#ATproto handles identity in a way that allows a single sign-in across apps. But wouldn't this make it easier to profile you? Is this why crypto VCs are so attracted to it?

And ATproto has funding in the 100s of millions by VCs but at some point they'll want to turn a profit. There is ZERO pressure here to ensh*tt*fy

📢 @w3c Breakouts Day 2026!
🗓️ Join us tomorrow - 25 March 2026, 13:00–14:00 UTC

The #ActivityPub specification defines a social API and a federation protocol. Mastodon and compatible platforms implement the latter but not the former.

Join @evan's session to discuss the social #API, its value in the distributed social ecosystem, and the efforts to revive its use.
▶️ https://www.w3.org/events/meetings/fd048dc6-4486-4e21-a639-545523e4ca60/

Alt...

Meeting: Reviving the ActivityPub social API

Loops actors now support interactionPolicy!

https://browser.pub/https://loops.video/@dansup

#Fediverse #ActivityPub

Thanks to oxzi, matoken, Louis Merlin, dandelions, Bruno Cesar Rocha and any other contributors I may have missed as well!

I submitted a Pull Request to update MacPorts' snac to 2.91 here:

https://github.com/macports/macports-ports/pull/31777

GitHub Continuous Integration checks are running, hopefully they will complete without issues?

Regardless, it's up to someone else with commit access to merge it!

#snac #MacPorts #OpenSource #ActivityPub #Mastodon #NoDatabaseNeeded
#NoJavaScript #NoCookiesEither #NotMuchBullShit #snacAnnounces

Fixed some local posts not being shown if the replied post is deleted.

Fixed web UI incorrect links to public posts for some configurations.

Fixed encoding bug in Mastodon-style share links.

Fixed an error that made imposible to leave empty the following hashtags or blocked hashtags from the web UI.

Include post attachments in the RSS feed entries.

Added some OpenBSD-specific documentation (contributed by oxzi).

Fixed some timezones (contributed by matoken).

Fixed some crashes (special thanks to Louis Merlin for helping me with this).

Updated Docker scripts to avoid generating a useless log file.

Fixed several memory leaks, key generation errors and HTML inconsistencies (contributed by dandelions).

Added ostatus.org and FEP-3b86 data to Webfinger objects.

Added a new CONTRIBUTING.md file. Among other guidelines, I explicitly say there that AI contributions are NOT accepted.

snac is now available as a Yunohost app. Thank you very much to Bruno Cesar Rocha for this.

https://comam.es/what-is-snac

If you find #snac useful, please consider buying grunfink a coffee or contributing via LiberaPay.

#snacAnnounces #FrugalFediverse

A curated list of #fediverse software that offer decentralized social networking services based on the @w3c #ActivityPub family of related protocols: https://delightful.coding.social/delightful-fediverse-experience/

@liaizon It’s still a work in progress… but it’s been working well for me so far. My goals for now are simply to learn and understand as much as possible about #ActivityPub, #Mastodon API, etc., while maintaining sovereignty over my identity and data. Maybe in the future I’ll make this open source. I don’t even have a name for it yet. It’s just a hobby… 🙂

@ivory

@liaizon It’s a piece of software I’m developing in my spare time as a hobby. It’s just pure PHP with SQLite running on a simple shared hosting server. Everything is up and running: #ActivityPub, the #Mastodon API, which allows it to work properly with clients like @ivory . The only thing missing is polls. When I have more free time, I’ll focus on that…

#selfhost #fediverse

Introducing Starter Kits

https://blog.joinloops.org/introducing-starter-kits/

#Loops #StarterKits #ActivityPub #Fediverse

Meet Fedibook!

The idea came from thinking about what it actually takes to get regular users onto the fediverse. Mastodon is great (i love it), but the follow-based model feels unfamiliar to some. Friends and Groups though — that's something everyone already understands.

So Fedibook is a fediverse platform built around exactly that, using ActivityPub. Think federated address book meets social network, with the kind of social graph people are already used to.

Current status:

- Friend requests across servers working
- News feed working, with visibility levels: public, friends-only, or local server only

Hoping to open up for early testing and feedback soon. Open source of course.

#fediverse #activitypub #fedibook #danmarkskifter

Alt...

Screenshut of fedibook dev server

The source code of #PawFed is now available on #Codeberg. PawFed is a federated map for animal welfare: reports come from the #Fediverse via #ActivityPub mentions, and permanent places like shelters and vets are pulled from OpenStreetMap.

A location is not always required: if you have supplies or food to give away and can ship, just say so.

Found an abandoned animal? Just report it.

How to build a message: https://pawfed.org/tags

Source code: https://codeberg.org/tom79/PawFed

Week in Fediverse 2026-03-20

Servers

- Akkoma v2026.03
- Bonfire v1.0.2
- PeerTube v8.1.3
- Mitra v4.20.0
- NodeBB v4.10.0
- GoToSocial v0.21.2
- Funkwhale v2.0.0
- Ktistec v3.3.4
- ActivityPub for WordPress v8.0.2
- PeerTube v8.1.3
- ties v0.2.0
- Wafrn v2026.03.02
- PieFed v1.6.13
- Some updates to ActivityBot
- tags.pub: Global hashtag server

Clients

- Fedilab v3.37.1
- tinmop v0.9.9.141421356237309504
- tooi v0.23.0
- Holos v1.0.0
- Voyager v2.44.0
- Aria v1.4.6

Tools and Plugins

- mastodon-bookmark-rss: A small app to let you connect your mastodon bookmarks to your RSS reader
- smol overlays: Chat overlay and emoji wall for Owncast streamers

For developers

- activitypub-federation-rust v0.5.11

Protocol

- FEP-3ab2: ActivityPub Event Streaming API
- FEP-34ec: Notification Collection Endpoint
- FEP-db70: RemoveAll Collection Activity
- FEP-c07e: add product type to object
- FEP-c195: JSONPath Filtering for ActivityPub Collection Retrieval
- FEP-f011: Full-Text Search Query Syntax for ActivityPub
- FEP-a1d1: ActivityPub Patch
- FEP-c81b: Agent Social Attribution for ActivityPub

Articles

- Openness, transparency and reach: three reasons why public institutions should embrace the Fediverse
- The Purpose of Protocols

-----

#WeekInFediverse #Fediverse #ActivityPub

Previous edition: https://mitra.social/objects/019ce933-238d-11fb-304d-c3557c940c30

Hashtag following also allow URLs to RSS feeds of ActivityPub objects (like e.g. https://mastodon.social/tags/ThankYouTuesday).

Users can now configure a webhook to receive an HTTP POST for every notification. This can be useful for implementing bots that react to activities, like autorepliers, chatbots or interactive textual games (see snac(1) for more information).

The number of pending follow confirmations is shown next to the "people" link.

Faster performance metrics (contributed by dandelions).

Improved lowercasing in hashtags (contributed by postscriptum).

A search-by-url tweak for implementations that return 200 for invalid webfinger queries (e.g. piefed).

Mastodon API: added follow confirmation endpoints, fixed collisions in attachment file names.

Fixed potential crashes in attachment uploads.

https://comam.es/what-is-snac

If you find #snac useful, please consider buying grunfink a coffee or contributing via LiberaPay.

#snacAnnounces #FrugalFediverse

Notifications are now shown in a more compact way (i.e. all reactions are shown just above your post, instead of repeating the post ad nauseam for every reaction).

New command-line option unmute to, well, no-longer-mute an actor.

The private timeline now includes an approximate mark between new posts and "already seen" ones.

Fixed a spurious 404 error in the instance root URL for some configurations.

https://comam.es/what-is-snac

If you find #snac useful, please consider contributing via LiberaPay: https://liberapay.com/grunfink/

#snacAnnounces

This release has been inspired by the song The Answers to the Questions by #Christabell and #DavidLynch.