Dev tools · alternatives · 2026
24 alternatives to OpenDolphin – A Community Built Open Source Social Network
Hey HN! I'm trying to create a community of people that are willing to contribute to the OpenDolphin project. The goal of the project is to build an Open Source _centralized_ social network that would ideally compete with Twitter, Facebook and Instagram. The main difference between the well established social and this one would be that it is going to be built and managed in the public, in the most transparent way possible. Features will be implemented and requested by the community - and generally speaking everything would be community-centric. If the project takes off, this might become one…
Below are 24 products that do a similar job, ranked by how close each is in meaning and then by launch-day votes. OpenDolphin – A Community Built Open Source Social Network launched in 2022; newer entries below may have overtaken it.
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A GNU Social-compatible microblogging server. Contribute to Gargron/mastodon development by creating an account on GitHub.
2016 · github.com · its alternatives →
- 3
Buzz▲161Your people, your agents, your project — all in one place
Jul 2026 · buzz.xyz · its alternatives →
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framework to build a user-generated community. Contribute to fananta/Pumpkin development by creating an account on GitHub.
2014 · github.com · its alternatives →
- 6MO
2014 · whoaverse.com · its alternatives →
- 7AM
TLDR: I built a "quick and dirty " private social network for my friends, posted on Reddit and HN, got some interest so now have built it properly along with my brother. site link: https://intimost.com/login/ demo creds: [email protected] Demo123! Full version: I needed a social network where I can just send updates and nothing else. So I built it, my friends liked and now I have built it "for the world". Everything is private by default. - Text-only updates - No likes. Only views to acknowledge a post - [in development] Comments are private between the poster and…
Oct 2025 · its alternatives →
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TLDR: I made a community where you can find builders or product owners to collab on sideprojects together with <3 A year ago i completed my first sideproject, a digital course on how to "cold email a chief information security officer". I thought and think its a great course, but of course I fell into all the traps (didnt verify a need, i thought id make it and everyone would buy automatically), i tested google ads but hated nerding on that, so i decided to find a marketing person to partner up with! But i knew no one! That got me thinking how many people with relevant knowledge that isnt…
2025 · relentlessly.no · its alternatives →
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Everything that would be here is in the README. I hope this gets big, it has tons of potential.
2013 · github.com · its alternatives →
- 11NP
I created a pet project to see if it is of use and interesting to people. The idea is on-demand real-time chat rooms for trending topics and for personal use. You can go to the main page at www.urshoutbox.com to create your own room then share it across your social networks/email, etc. I created a hacker news specific "shoutbox" at http://www.urshoutbox.com/bLmYAL/hacker-news . If nobody is in there, please be patient and (I hope) people will join soon to start talking. The idea is to have trending topics on facebook/twitter/etc and have chat rooms to get…
2014 · urshoutbox.com · its alternatives →
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Howdy, Open Notes co-founder here! At Open Notes, we're building a system for community-driven constructive moderation and annotation that can be added to anything. Under the hood, we're using the open-source Twitter/X Community Notes algorithm (though that doesn't really kick in until you've got some scale). We're interested in providing everyone with tools for managing discourse that go beyond traditional moderation. Discord is the demo/reference integration, but we want it go anywhere and everywhere. Part of our thesis is that we want to get to where people are already talking…
Feb 2026 · opennotes.ai · its alternatives →
- 13PA
Hi Everyone, Today I'm proud to announce the upcoming launch of Postcard. You can visit the launch page here - http://www.postcardsocial.net However, since this is Hacker News, I thought the community might be more interested in my blog entry which explains in detail why the project should be of interest to developers including information about the open API Protocol it will adhere to. You can read the blog entry here - http://blog.postcardsocial.net/introducing-postcard/ Feedback is welcome and appreciated. I'm actively looking for beta testers and you can sign…
2013 · its alternatives →
- 14WP
A proof of concept i've developed several months ago . The idea was to build a social network without users and learn Django. Warm Regards from Argentina. Martin.
2012 · doadoing.com · its alternatives →
- 15
This is a community forum for people who use, build, and run things on Nostr. Whether you are taking your first steps with keys and zaps, ship relays and clien…
22d ago · nostr-proto.org · its alternatives →
- 16SA
Hey HN, A buddy and I have been working on a side project in the online community space in our free time over the past few years. Our platform is a sort of Discord/Reddit/Patreon hybrid. Decided to do a soft launch today in light of all the recent Reddit news. Community features: 1. Customizable discussion boards. Community owners can setup threaded discussion boards for different topics related to their niche. Say a user creates a community for a niche like "Cars", under that community they could create different discussion boards for sub categories like "Car-mods", "Car-photos",…
2023 · sociables.com · its alternatives →
- 17MF
Please have a look at www.socialeaks.com and tell me what you think. This is my first adventure in coding (my background is not CS). I started learning rails about a month ago via railstutorial.org. When I finished that, I felt the best way to continue learning would be to just build an app from scratch. I came up with this concept while observing how crazy the world had gone over WikiLeaks. I thought this was a funny idea. I also thought it would be fun to build! So, here I am. I built this in rails 3 and it is currently living on Heroku. It took me about two weeks to code, doing just about…
2011 · its alternatives →
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Quickpost▲10Hi HN, I’ve been building a small social network where the feed is always chronological — newest posts come first, always. It’s not 100% algorithm-free (there’s still basic filtering to avoid spam or abuse), but the core idea is that every user has a real chance to be seen, even with zero followers. It’s lightweight, works well on mobile, and supports both posts and comments. Most of the content is currently in Portuguese, since it started with a Brazilian audience, but the interface is mostly language-neutral. I’d love any feedback on the concept, UX, performance, or anything else. Thanks!
2025 · qqpost.netlify.app · its alternatives →
- 19OC
Hey everyone! I built a little side project called OpenQuest over the last three weeks, and I'm looking for some feedback to see if it's worth taking further. The idea is simple: it's a place to create a chat room where you can connect with people (a maximum of 8) who have the same goal as you, for a short time (7 days for now). Think of it as a way to stay motivated, hold each other accountable, or simply work together with new people on something specific. Some examples can be: - Following a programming course - Reading a book - Getting back to the gym - Cleaning up your home - Shopping…
2024 · openquest.app · its alternatives →
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Hey HN! For a while I’ve been trying (unsuccessfully) to find a community for tech bloggers to get together and share what they’re working on, so here’s my attempt at making my own. It’s a completely free website and designed to be super straightforward to use. Functionality wise it’s pretty minimalist right now, with just the ability to register accounts, post drafts, and comment on other user’s posts. Support for more features like tagging post topics, user profiles and more are coming soon! Thanks for checking it out, and I’d love to hear any thoughts from the community. P.S. if you don’t…
2024 · review.caleb.software · its alternatives →
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We’re building Poppin — a browser extension that turns any webpage into a shared social space. Users can chat in real-time, leave post, or host voice spaces with their communities on any URL. It’s like turning the internet into a live Twitch stream or Reddit communities — for every url of the web without requiring integration. Currently, we’re in invite-only beta and collecting feedback from early users. Try it out and let us know what feels smooth, what feels broken, and what you’d want more of. Intro Video: https://x.com/poppin_so/status/1843651417783054776 Request…
2025 · poppin.so · its alternatives →
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Hi HN, I'm the creator of epress. After a lot of work, I'm excited (and a bit nervous) to finally share it with you. For years, I've been feeling like a digital tenant on the platforms I use every day. My content, my social graph, my online identity—they were all stored on someone else's servers, subject to their rules, algorithms, and business models. I could be de-platformed, my data could be sold, or an API I relied on could suddenly be put behind a paywall. I looked into existing decentralized alternatives. While many are great projects, I found they often shifted the trust from a big…
2025 · github.com · its alternatives →
- 23ST
Hey HN. We've been working on a community platform/Reddit alternative with a focus on building a place for people to create communities instead of just buckets of posts. We want communities to feel like a place where you want to hang out instead of just scroll. At a high level, our platform is like a Reddit/Discord/Patreon hybrid. We took all of the best features from each of those platforms and combined them under one umbrella. Here's a list of the core features of each community: 1. Customizable discussion boards: Community owners can set up threaded discussion boards for…
2023 · sociables.substack.com · its alternatives →
- 24
This weekend I finally shipped Gryt, a project I’ve been building since 2022 — an open-source, self-hostable Discord-style app focused on reliable voice chat + text. I’m the creator. I started it after getting fed up with Discord disconnects/paywalls and wanted something self-hosted and auditable. I started on this in 2022 and had an early proof-of-concept working back then (auth + friends list), but I quickly realized WebRTC voice isn’t something you can duct-tape together. I spent a big chunk of the next couple years learning the stack (ICE/DTLS-SRTP, NAT traversal, SFU design),…
Feb 2026 · gryt.chat · its alternatives →
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Ranked by how close each launch is in meaning, then by votes. Prices were read from each product’s own site when checked and can change. Refine with your own description →