Fediverse

Fediverse is the universe of federated servers (instances) used for publishing online content. The beauty of it is that despite software those instances run or policies their owners enforce, servers can talk to each other (federate) using open standards like ActivityPub or others.

I got very much interested in the idea of federation in the beginning of 2019 after deleting my Facebook account and pages.

First server I have installed was Mastodon (source) on mastodon.lt. I use it as Twitter and Facebook alternative for short posts and communication.

Next followed WriteFreely (source) instance I've set up on fedi.dev – a freshly available top level domain sponsored by Google. This instance is where you are reading this post from.

For posting videos I've setup instance of PeerTube (source) on videotape.me. This software is particularly interesting because as soon as you start viewing video, you are seeding it to other viewers via JavaScript based torrent client that runs on your browser. Ingenious!

Next will be installation of PixelFed – federated image sharing platform to substitute Instagram. Update: tried to install Pixelfed – too much trouble: system relies on Laravel framework, needs composer, is managed with artisan, runs jobs with Horizon... I wish it was vanilla PHP 😄 Domain image.as will have to wait – I'll use it when snap.as decides to open source their code 🤓 Update: snap.as might go out as library for WriteFreely. Looking forward to – would be even better.


My name is Gytis Repečka, I am Solution Architect and data professional. I enjoy using, promoting and contributing to open source software and love communicating about tech to both advanced and non-tech people. Visit Inretio for consulting services. Comment by mentioning me @gytisrepecka@social.gyt.is on Fediverse.