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Hubzilla

a non-commercial social network

This social network is not a company, it has no profit motive or owner. It respects your privacy by not collecting personal data or tracking you; there is no advertising, there are no unknown algorithms determining what you see on your timeline (you define exactly what you see there), there are no strategies to hijack your attention or get you hooked on the platform (these things are known because its free and open source software is available in its entirety on the Internet). Hubzilla is not a commercial social network.

In fact, Hubzilla is a flexible, customizable social network software with online publication management features. You can use it as a social network (this text focuses on this use); but, if you're not interested in that, you can use it in other ways – among them: as a personal or professional website; as the website of a group or organization; as an artist's fan page, as a discussion group, etc.

Some features of the Hubzilla network.

1. Free software – The social network software is made available in its entirety on the Internet to be examined by anyone interested (professional programmers, amateurs and auditing organizations) and also used by anyone (who can even make modifications and adaptations to the software). (Hubzilla uses the MIT license).

2. Decentralization – the social network does not have a single or central site and its overall operation is not determined by a single person, but, in a diverse and heterogeneous way, by many people, each of whom independently manages and customizes a site (or instance) of the network. This means that you can independently open and manage an instance of the Hubzilla network – (more on this later).

3. Federation – the Hubzilla network uses three communication protocols (Zot / ActivityPub / Diaspora) that allow it to communicate with other networks that use the same (or compatible) protocols, including networks that are part of the fediverse.

On the Hubzilla network, when you make a post, in addition to features common on other social networks, you can also:

There is no character limit for posts. The visibility of the post can be set to: a) public; b) just for me); c) for any of the “private groups” you have created; d) for a customized selection of “connections” (contacts).

You can also:

Create photo albums;

Add events to your calendar.

Create and name private groups with your connections, for which you can then write specific posts.

Set permissions that define which people can access specific posts, photos or files in your account.

Store files in your account's cloud – a feature integrated with access permissions for your contacts.

Use the Affinity Tool to register your degree of affinity with each connection, and then, by accessing the timeline (Stream), you can adjust the affinity bar to filter posts, so that only posts from friends or family or acquaintances are shown, for example.

Create a Guest Access to give access to specific things in your account (folders, files, photos, posts, etc.) to people who are not your contacts or even people who don't use any social network. You choose what to share, to which person(s) and for how long.

Webpages – Create and edit webpages for your channel (just easily install the native Webpages app).

Wiki – Create and edit wikis for your channel.

You can modify or extend your channel's features by installing (easily and very quickly) a series of apps (available in the “+ Apps” section in the channel menu). These are apps from the network itself; when you create a channel, in addition to the basic functions of a social network, it already has the “files”, “calendar” and “contact roles” apps installed; but many others you install only if you want to use the feature that the app offers. (For example, Webpages and Wiki are two of these apps that are optional to install. At the moment (28/Sep/2024), there are 45 apps available.

Use Contact Roles to set up permission profiles for interacting with your connections.

View RSS feeds from websites in your timeline.

Generate an RSS feed of your own posts.

NSFW (Not Safe For Work) – Does not show posts in your timeline that have keywords, expressions or languages that you have previously defined.

Connection filter – Allows you to filter (not show on your timeline – or only show) posts from specific contacts (considering keywords, tags, expressions and languages).

Open more than one channel. When you open an account, you create and set up a channel. After that, if you want, you can open another channel or channels. These channels will be independent of each other. You can, for example, create a first personal channel, for your personal social relationships. Then you might want to create a second channel for your professional profile – or, related in some way to your professional activity. Then you might want to create a third channel, dedicated, for example, to some hobby or activism (social, environmental, etc.). Then you might want to have a pseudonymous channel; that would be the fourth. You can access all your channels by logging into your account. The channels are not necessarily – if you create some of them with nicknames or pseudonyms – identifiable by your contacts or other people as your channels – unless you inform them that a new channel is also yours or there is something on the channel (or in your posts) that refers to the identity of one of your other channels.

Open a channel as a group. When you create a channel (the first or any other) – as well as choosing to open a “Personal” channel, to correspond to some kind of personal profile, you can also create a “Community forum” channel, to function as a chat or discussion group.

You can clone your channel (or channels) (with settings, contacts and posts) in other Hubzilla instances (sites), and thus automatically synchronize any changes or actions made in your channel in any of the instances to the other instances. So, if your original instance stops working for some reason (temporarily or permanently), you can continue using your channel as normal by logging in to one of the other instances where the channel is cloned. (This channel cloning feature only exists on the Hubzilla network – considering the networks currently maintained by its developers). You can also easily make backups of your channels (with settings, contacts and posts) on your computer.

Privacy: in addition to the various features already mentioned relating to privacy, you can also hide your contacts (their numbers and names) – even from your own contacts.

The public timeline (Public Stream) is disabled on several Hubzilla sites/instances (including the one I chose to open my account on). The administrator of each instance can, if they wish, enable a Public Stream of only their own instance or a federated Public Stream (which will also show posts made on other instances). When Public Stream is not enabled, you only see the posts of the people you have chosen to connect with.

You can find and connect with other people by looking at the participants in your instance's directory, in the directories of other Hubzilla instances and in the directories of instances of other networks with which Hubzilla connects, as well as by looking at the comments on your contacts' posts, and by searching for people's names, the names of their channels or topics/interests.

To see what the “face” of the Hubzilla network looks like – or rather, one of the faces – go to this channel: Style Satellite

To open an account

If you just want to open an account on the Hubzilla network, you first need to choose one of its instances (with open registrations) in order to open an account there. A person with an account on an instance can connect with people who have accounts on the same or other instances of the network; as well as with people on networks with which Hubzilla connects. Opening a first account on an instance is a great way to get to know and experience the Hubzilla network and then decide whether you would like to open your own instance, either for yourself or for friends and/or other people. Click here for a guide to taking your first steps on the Hubzilla network.

Note: just as anyone (with certain knowledge and resources) can open a Hubzilla network instance, that person can also close the instance at any time, even without prior notice. This doesn't happen often, but it can happen. As the network is not a company and each instance is managed independently by one person or group, there is no guarantee that the instance will continue to function for a certain period of time. (Information on this should be requested from the person managing the instance). For this reason, Hubzilla offers the possibility for you to export (download) the settings of your channels (including your contacts) at any time – which acts as a backup – and import them into another Hubzilla instance. When an instance is opened up for other people to create accounts, this can be done free of charge, by informing them of the possibility of making voluntary donations or by charging a fee. Some instances allow anyone to open an account, others require the account opening request to be approved.

To open a Hubzilla instance – for one or more accounts

You will need technical knowledge of computers and the Internet (including the Linux terminal) to open your instance. The two ways below to open the instance are presented in order, from the one that requires the most technical knowledge, a), to the one that requires the least technical knowledge, b) – but they all do. If you don't have this knowledge, try to contact someone you trust who does, and who can then create the instance for you.

a) This link to the Admin Guide provides information on how to manually install the instance on a server.

b) Investing an affordable amount (5.75 dollars/month, at K&T Host) – which can still be split between the people you invite to have an account on your instance.

For choice “a”, there is the annual cost of the webhosting service – starting at US$ 43. For either choice – “a” or “b” – there is also the annual cost of the domain name (URL address) of the instance – starting at US$ 14, for example.

Network website: Hubzilla

To learn more about Hubzilla:

Comparison between Mastodon, Friendica, Hubzilla and (streams) – Jupiter Rowland

November, 2024. Updated on: Apr 30, 2025.

CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 2025 Ink on Paper