The best open source Facebook alternative depends on the goal: Friendica is the closest match for Facebook-style profiles, groups and events, while Diaspora favors privacy-first sharing with aspects. Both are federated, self-hostable and free to run.
Both projects belong to a wider family, and the overview of the open source social network field explains how they relate to the rest of the fediverse.
What “Facebook-style” actually means
Facebook bundles several different things under one login: a personal profile, a friends list, a news feed, groups, events, private messaging and photo albums. An open source replacement has to cover most of those to feel familiar. It also has to answer a question Facebook never needed to: who runs the server?
Open source networks answer by splitting the service into many independently operated servers that talk to each other. Diaspora describes this model as a group of independently owned nodes, called pods, which interoperate to form the network. A person can join an existing server, or run one personally, and still reach people on other servers.
That design trades some convenience for control. There is no single company setting feed rules, no central advertising profile and no single point where all data sits. There is also no single support desk, and the experience varies from one server to the next.
Friendica: the closest open source Facebook alternative
Among the options, friendica is the one most often described in Facebook terms. A review quoted on Wikipedia from PCMag called it “mostly comparable to Facebook”, and highlighted its use for planning events and its multiple-profile feature, which lets a user show a different face to friends, coworkers and family.
Its distinguishing trait is connectivity. According to its Wikipedia entry, users connect through their own Friendica server but can also fully integrate contacts from other platforms, including Diaspora, Pump.io, GNU social, email and Discourse, and more recently ActivityPub. That means a Friendica account can act as a hub for several networks rather than a walled garden.
ActivityPub support matters in practice because it opens the door to Mastodon and similar services. Most GNU social and Mastodon clients can also be used with Friendica, so mobile apps are not a major gap.
Running it is modest in cost. One review cited on the same page says Friendica does not require any specific hardware, so an old computer can serve as a server. The same entry notes that installing on shared hosting can be difficult when PHP modules are missing, so the hosting choice deserves a little checking before committing.
Diaspora: privacy-first sharing
Diaspora was one of the first high-profile attempts at a personal, decentralized network. It was founded in 2010 by four students at New York University’s Courant Institute, and the group received crowdfunding in excess of $200,000 via Kickstarter. A consumer alpha version was released on 23 November 2010.
The software is licensed under GNU-AGPL-3.0, and development is managed by the Diaspora Foundation. According to the Wikipedia entry, the latest stable release shown was 0.9.1.0, dated 7 April 2026, and the project’s status was listed as active.
Its feel differs from Facebook. Instead of a single friends list, users sort contacts into aspects and choose which aspect sees each post. That makes audience control a core habit rather than a setting buried in menus. The trade-off is a plainer feature set: it has no event pages or rich group tools to match Friendica’s.
Comparing the two side by side
| Question | Friendica | Diaspora |
|---|---|---|
| Closest Facebook feature match | Profiles, events, multiple profiles | Aspects for audience control |
| Cross-network contacts | Diaspora, ActivityPub, email and more | Mainly its own pod network |
| Server technology | PHP | Ruby on Rails |
| Licence | Free and open source | GNU-AGPL-3.0 |
Table details draw on the Friendica and Diaspora entries on Wikipedia, which describe the cross-network contacts and the AGPL licence.
The differences show up most in daily use. A Friendica user who wants to follow a Mastodon account, read a Diaspora contact’s posts and keep email correspondents in the same stream can do so from one interface. A Diaspora user stays inside a tighter circle, which suits people who found Facebook’s broad audience uncomfortable and would rather share with a chosen few.
Neither choice is permanent. Because both networks are federated, a person who starts on one can often keep contact with people on the other, and Friendica’s listed Diaspora integration is the clearest example of that overlap.
For someone leaving Facebook with a mixed group of relatives and colleagues, Friendica tends to be the easier landing spot. For a smaller circle that mainly wants private sharing, Diaspora’s simpler model can be enough.
Choosing and getting started
Moving away from Facebook is as much a social task as a technical one. Most people stay on a platform because their contacts are there, so a switch works best when it is gradual: create an account, post a few times, tell close contacts where to find it, and keep the old account open while the new one gains regular readers.
It also helps to separate what is being replaced. Photo albums, group discussions, event invitations and private chats each have different substitutes, and a federated network may cover only some of them well. Testing one use first, such as a family group or an event, shows quickly whether the experience is good enough.
The practical first step is to join an existing public server before considering self-hosting. Joining costs nothing to test, and accounts on federated networks can usually be exported or moved later, though the details differ by project.
- Audience: if friends and family are unlikely to switch, pick a platform that can bridge to others, which favors Friendica.
- Hosting: a server run by an administrator who publishes clear rules and a contact address is a safer starting point than an anonymous one.
- Posting style: short public posts fit microblogging networks better; the open source twitter alternative guide covers that side.
- Maintenance: self-hosting means applying security updates promptly. Friendica, for instance, issued a hotfix in September 2020 for a vulnerability that could leak sensitive server information.
None of these networks matches Facebook’s user numbers, and that is the main cost. The gain is ownership: the code is open to inspection, and the people who run the server answer to its users rather than to advertisers.
Frequently asked questions
Is there a true open source Facebook replacement?
No single project copies Facebook completely. Friendica comes closest in features, while Diaspora covers private sharing. Both are open source and federated.
Can Friendica talk to Mastodon?
Yes. Friendica’s Wikipedia entry lists ActivityPub support, including Mastodon, and says most Mastodon clients work with it.
Do these networks need powerful hardware?
Not necessarily. A review cited on Wikipedia says Friendica needs no specific hardware and can run on an old computer, though shared hosting may lack required PHP modules.
Who controls the data on Diaspora?
Each pod is independently owned, so the administrator of the chosen pod holds the account data. Running a personal pod gives the most direct control.
