Estimated Monthly Budget
€1,298
Today's Balance
€2,811.51
Tobi + Kim fulltime wage (4k ...
€8,500
per month
Contribute
Become a financial contributor.
Financial Contributions
GoToSocial is all of us
Our contributors 386
Thank you for supporting GoToSocial.
Top financial contributors
Individuals
Jeff Moe
€1,500 EUR since Aug 2023
2
Incognito
€900 EUR since Jul 2022
LittleFox
€840 EUR since Jan 2023
modulux
€716 EUR since Jun 2022
Malenia Elden Ring
€600 EUR since Apr 2023
6
A friendly golem
€580 EUR since Apr 2024
Sundog
€550 EUR since Jun 2022
Sylv Ieri
€550 EUR since Jul 2023
Milas
€545 EUR since Jan 2024
10
Incognito
€500 EUR since Sep 2026
Phil Hagelberg
€460 EUR since Nov 2022
Incognito
€460 EUR since Nov 2022
rune
€442 EUR since Sep 2022
phessler
€380 EUR since Nov 2022
15
Incognito
€380 EUR since Aug 2023
Organizations
HTTP Toolkit
€280 EUR since Nov 2022
Knowledge Work
€264 EUR since Aug 2023
Electromagnetic Field
€150 EUR since Nov 2022
gravitons loves the Fediverse <3
€55 EUR since Aug 2023
DINAcon
€50 EUR since Dec 2022
Budget
Transparent and open finances.
+€5.00EUR
Completed
Contribution #587478
Credit from daj to GoToSocial •
+€10.00EUR
Completed
Contribution #822043
Credit from Incognito to GoToSocial •
+€5.00EUR
Completed
Contribution #965661
€
Today’s balance€2,811.51 EUR
Total raised
€23,376.00 EUR
Total disbursed
€20,564.49 EUR
Estimated annual budget
€15,571.33 EUR
About
What is GoToSocial?
With GoToSocial, you can keep in touch with your friends, post, read, and share images and articles. All without being tracked or advertised to!
GoToSocial is still BETA SOFTWARE. It is already deployable and useable, and it federates cleanly with many other Fediverse servers (not yet all). However, many things are not yet implemented, and there are plenty of bugs! We left alpha stage around September/October 2024, and we intend to exit beta some time around 2026.
Documentation is at docs.gotosocial.org.
---
GoToSocial provides a lightweight, customizable, and safety-focused entryway into the Fediverse, and is comparable to (but distinct from) existing projects such as Mastodon, Pleroma, Friendica, and PixelFed.
If you've ever used something like Twitter or Tumblr (or even Myspace!) GoToSocial will probably feel familiar to you: You can follow people and have followers, you make posts which people can favourite and reply to and share, and you scroll through posts from people you follow using a timeline. You can write long posts or short posts, or just post images, it's up to you. You can also, of course, block people or otherwise limit interactions that you don't want by posting just to your friends.
GoToSocial does NOT use recommendation algorithms or collect data about you to suggest content or 'improve your experience'. The timeline is chronological: whatever you see at the top of your timeline is there because it's just been posted, not because it's been selected as interesting (or controversial) based on your personal profile.
GoToSocial is not designed for 'must-follow' influencers with tens of thousands of followers, and it's not designed to be addictive. Your timeline and your experience is shaped by who you follow and how you interact with people, not by metrics of engagement!
GoToSocial doesn't claim to be better than any other application, but it offers something that might be better for you in particular.
Federation
Because GoToSocial uses ActivityPub, you can hang out not just with people on your home server, but with people all over the Fediverse, seamlessly.
Federation means that your home server is part of a network of servers all over the world that all communicate using the same protocol. Your data is no longer centralized on one company's servers, but resides on your own server and is shared -- as you see fit -- across a resilient web of servers run by other people.
This federated approach also means that you aren't beholden to arbitrary rules from some gigantic corporation potentially thousands of miles away. Your server has its own rules and culture; your fellow server residents are your neighbors; you will likely get to know your server admins and moderators, or be an admin yourself.
GoToSocial advocates for many small, weird, specialist servers where people can feel at home, rather than a few big and generic ones where one person's voice can get lost in the crowd.
History and Status
This project sprang up in February/March 2021 out of a dissatisfaction with the safety + privacy features of other Federated microblogging/social media applications, and a desire to implement something a little different.
It began as a solo project, and then picked up steam as more developers became interested and jumped on.
We made our first Alpha release in November 2021. We left Alpha and entered Beta in September/October 2024.
For a detailed view on what's implemented and what's not, and progress made towards stable release, please see the roadmap document.
Mastodon API compatibility
The Mastodon API has become the de facto standard for client communication with federated servers, so GoToSocial has implemented and extended the API with custom functionality.
Though most apps that implement the Mastodon API should work, GoToSocial is tested and works reliably with beautiful apps like:
If you've used Mastodon with a third-party app before, you'll find using GoToSocial a breeze.
Granular post settings
It's important that when you post something, you can choose who sees it.
GoToSocial offers public, unlisted/unlocked, followers-only, and direct posts (slide in DMs! -- with consent).
Reply Controls
GoToSocial lets you choose who can reply to your posts, via interaction policies. You can choose to let anyone reply to your posts, let only your friends reply, and more.
Local-only Posting
Sometimes you only want to talk to people you share an instance with. GoToSocial supports this via local-only posting, which ensures that your post stays on your instance only, even if it gets boosted. They also do not show up in the web interface, and are not accessible publicly via URL. (Local-only posting is currently dependent on client support.)
RSS Feed
GoToSocial lets you opt-in to exposing your profile as an RSS feed, so that people can subscribe to your public feed without missing a post.
Rich Text Formatting
With GoToSocial, you can write posts using the popular, easy-to-use Markdown markup language, which lets you produce rich HTML posts with support for blockquotes, syntax-highlighted code blocks, lists, inline links, and more.
Themes and Custom CSS
Users can choose from a variety of fun themes for their profile, or even write their own custom CSS.
It's also easy for admins to add their own custom themes for users to choose from.
Easy to Run
GoToSocial uses only about 250-350MiB of RAM, and requires very little CPU power, so it plays nice with single-board computers, old laptops and tiny $5/month VPSes.
No external dependencies apart from a database (or just use SQLite!).
Simply download the binary + assets (or Docker container), tweak your configuration, and run.
Safety + security features
- Strict privacy enforcement for posts, and strict blocking logic.
- Choose the visibility of posts on the web view of your profile.
- Import, export, and subscribe to community-created domain allow and domain block lists.
- HTTP signature authentication: GoToSocial requires HTTP Signatures when sending and receiving messages, to ensure that your messages can't be tampered with and your identity can't be forged.
- Built-in, automatic support for secure HTTPS with Let's Encrypt.
- Support for two-factor authentication via time-based one-time passwords (Google authenticator, LastPass authenticator, etc).
Various federation modes
GoToSocial doesn't apply a one-size-fits-all approach to federation. Who your server federates with should be up to you.
- 'blocklist' mode (default): discover new servers; block servers you don't like.
- 'allowlist' mode (experimental); opt-in to federation with trusted servers.
- 'zero' federation mode; keep your server private (not yet implemented).
OIDC Integration
GoToSocial supports OpenID Connect (OIDC) identity providers, meaning you can integrate it with existing user management services like Auth0, Gitlab, etc., or run your own and hook GtS up to that (we recommend Dex).
Backend-first design
Unlike other federated server projects, GoToSocial doesn't include an integrated client front-end (i.e., a web app).
Instead, like Matrix.org's Synapse project, it provides a relatively generic backend server implementation, some beautiful static pages for profiles and posts, and a well-documented API.
On top of this API, web developers are encouraged to build any front-end implementation or mobile application that they wish, whether Tumblr-like, Facebook-like, Twitter-like, or something else entirely.
Contact
For questions and comments, you can join our Matrix space at #gotosocial-space:superseriousbusiness.org. This is the quickest way to reach the devs. You can also mail [email protected].
For bugs and feature requests, please check to see if there's already an issue, and if not, open one or use one of the above channels to make a request (if you don't have a Codeberg account)
Image Attribution and Licensing
Sloth logo by Anna Abramek.
The GoToSocial sloth mascot is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
The Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License license applies specifically to the following files and subdirectories of the repository:
Under the terms of the license, you are free to:
- Share — copy and redistribute the abovementioned material in any medium or format.
- Adapt — remix, transform, and build upon the abovementioned material for any purpose, even commercially.
Team
In alphabetical order (... and order of smell):
- daenney
- f0x [donate with liberapay]
- kim [check out my code @ codeberg, or find me @ @kim]
- tobi
- vyr
Special Thanks
Thanks to everyone who has used GtS, opened an issue, suggested something, given funding, and otherwise encouraged or supported the project!
Corporate Sponsorship
GoToSocial is open to sponsorship arrangements with organizations that align with our values. To show our thanks for your support, we will display your logo, website, and a short tagline on the repository and documentation. The following caveats apply to sponsorships:
- GoToSocial project direction will always remain 100% in the hands of the core team, and will never be dictated or influenced by corporate sponsorship. This is non-negotiable. Corporations are of course free of course to suggest / request features in the same manner as any other user, but they are not given special treatment.
- Corporate sponsorship is dependent on your organization meeting our team's ethical guidelines. These are not a concrete set of rules but instead boil down to "is your company causing harm?". For example, those in the defense industry need not apply as the simple answer to that question is, "yes!".
If after reading this you are still interested in supporting us, that is wonderful! Please reach out to us at [email protected] to further discuss :)
License
Copyright (C) GoToSocial Authors