Building shared infrastructure for the Fediverse
Bonfire is working with Mastodon to make remote media storage and automated content detection interoperable across the fediverse.
Explore
Explore what your community could build.
FeaturesBUILD Building blocks your community can combine. Comparison tableCOMPARE How Bonfire differs from other community platforms. Case studiesSTORIES How communities are shaping Bonfire for their needs. About BonfireABOUT The project, principles, and people behind it. Try Bonfire at the campground ↗ Launch your BonfireChoose how much you want to run yourself.
Self-hostDIY Your infrastructure and some sysadmin comfort. Cooperative hostingHOST Your own space without a sysadmin job. Co-design with usWITH For communities, organisations and funders with specific needs. Compare all three routes → EcosystemFind people, answers, and tools around Bonfire.
ParticipateJOIN Contribute, collaborate, or help sustain the commons. FAQsASK Licensing, federation, privacy, and governance. DocumentationDOCS Setup guides and technical reference for hosts and builders. Browse the source code ↗ Blog Merch Get startedArticles tagged development
Bonfire 1.0.7: what's new and what's next
A fresh default interface, reworked discussions, faster feeds and dozens of fixes, plus where we're riding next: public federated groups, better notifications, and settings you can find.
Bonfire Social 1.0.5: Archipelago!
1.0.5 introduces Archipelago mode: opt-in, allow-list federation for communities who want to choose exactly who they connect with, plus broadcast announcements, embeddable widgets, encrypted emails, faster search, and a lot of polish.
Bonfire 1.0.3: Stability, Clarity, and Federated Publishing
Since the 1.0 release of Bonfire Social, we've been heads-down listening to our our pilot communities, beta testers, and co-design partners. Version 1.0.3 is the result: a release focused on stability and polish, which fixes a wide range of bugs and brings meaningful usability improvements, especially around feeds, boundaries, and more advanced features.
Bonfire 1.0.2: Shaping Your Space
We just released Bonfire 1.0.2, an update focused on giving you a more stable and reliable experience. We're also heads-down working with several communities who are setting up their own Bonfire servers in the coming months. Plus end to end encryption and federated groups development updates.
Bonfire 1.0.1: Building Momentum
We're back with an update focused on making your social web experience livelier, more connected, and truly yours. Plus updates on the crowdfunding campaign and what's next.
Bonfire Social 1.0rc3
Bonfire’s latest release puts data portability (moving and taking your data with you) and anti-enshittification (avoiding manipulative platform tricks) front and center.
Understanding Navigation in LiveView Native
Today, we'll go through the implementation of the main navigation patterns needed to traverse our app's sections and views.
Prototyping Our First Native Components with LiveView Native
With our initial mockups complete, we were eager to start coding in LiveView Native (LVN). There are two primary ways to debug our iOS app: using Xcode or LVN Go.
Building Bonfire Native Apps with LiveView Native
Welcome to the first post of our development diary for the Bonfire native app. In this series, we'll journey together through the entire process of designing and publishing Bonfire on the Apple App Store using LiveView Native.
The Road to Bonfire 1.0
We've spent the past two years building, iterating, experimenting, and refactoring the Bonfire codebase — to explore our assumptions, co-design with our community, and stretch the limits of social networking, all while having fun!
