tchncs

forte

a non-commercial social network and the most feature-rich ActivityPub (only) decentralised personal communication system

Check out a channel (by a music fan) on the forte social network: Albums

Note: In the second half of 2024, developer Mike Macgirvin announced in a public post that he was retiring from developing decentralized social networks software. However, after a few weeks, he continued to develop (streams) and also began to provide information about the development of a new network that would emerge in 2025: forte – while stating that he was still retired. Since then, both networks have received updates. In November 2025, Macgirvin made an interesting update to the README text of the forte network.

forte does not have an official instance (flagship), and the administrators of its instances do not usually allow public registrations. Therefore, you will need technical knowledge about computers and the Internet (including the Linux terminal) to install and maintain your instance. (If you do not have this knowledge, you can open an account on the Hubzilla network, which has many features in common with forte).

Features and resources

The forte social network is not a company or an organization, it is not for profit, and it does not even have an owner. It respects your privacy, does not collect personal data or track you; there is no advertising, no unknown algorithms determining what you see on your timeline (you define exactly what you will see there), no strategies to hijack your attention or get you hooked on the platform (we know these things because its free software is available in its entirety on the Internet). forte is not a commercial social network.

In fact, forte is a flexible and customizable social communication software. You can use it as a social network (this text focuses on this use); but if you are not interested in that, you can use it in other ways—including: as a personal or professional online presence; as the online presence of a group or organization; as an artist's fan page, as a discussion group, etc.

Some features of the forte social network.

Among social networks that use only the ActivityPub protocol, forte is the most feature-rich network. On the forte network, when you make a post, in addition to features common to other networks, you can also:

There is no character limit for posts. The visibility of the post can be set as: a) public; b) to all your contacts (“connections”); c) to any of the “access lists” you have created; d) to a custom selection of contacts; e) only to you. To share files, photos, videos, web pages, or maps, you can drag and drop them into the post composition window. You can also: Create photo albums; Make comments on your public posts visible only to your contacts; Register events in the calendar and mark your attendance at them. (For your friends who also use the calendar, it offers birthday notifications with automatic time zone adjustment). Create different access lists with your connections, to which you can then write specific posts. Set permissions that define which people can access specific posts, photos, or files in your channel. Store files in your channel's cloud—a feature integrated with access permissions for your contacts. Use Friend Zoom to register your degree of closeness with each contact, and then, by accessing the timeline (stream), you can zoom in or zoom out to filter posts, causing them to be shown, for example, posts from close friends or acquaintances. Create a Guest Pass to give access to specific things in your channel (folders, files, photos, posts, etc.) to people who are not your contacts or even to people who do not use any social network. You choose what to share, with whom, and for how long.

Create a to-do list.

Create notes.

You can modify or expand your channel's features by installing (with just one click) a series of apps (available in the apps section of the channel menu). These are apps from the network itself; when you create the channel, several of them are already installed, and several others are not. You only install them if you want to use the feature that the app offers. (For example, Friend Zoom and Guest Pass are two of these optional apps—as is Future Posting, which allows you to schedule a post for a future date and time). Currently (Dec. 15, 2025), there are 35 apps available.

Custom filter – Allows you to filter posts from specific contacts, not showing them on your timeline, or showing only posts according to criteria you set (such as the presence of keywords, hashtags, categories, etc.).

Multiple identities in one account. When you open an account, you create and configure 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 may want to create a second channel for your professional profile—or one related in some way to your professional activity. Then, you may want to create a third channel, dedicated, for example, to a hobby or activism (social, environmental, etc.). Then, you may want to have a channel under a pseudonym; that would be the fourth. You have access to 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 in 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), you can choose to open a “social” channel to match a personal profile, or you can choose to create a “group” channel to function as a forum for conversation or discussion. In this case, you must choose between four types of groups: normal, limited, moderated, and restricted, depending on how you want the conversations to unfold. These groups also allow people who have accounts on other social networks connected to the forte network (networks that use the ActivityPub protocol) to participate.

Central to the functioning of forte and the modulation of relationships established through this social network is the concept of consent. Macgirvin has already defined his software as “consent-based.” In practice, this means that when you have a channel on the forte network, all forms of interaction with you by other people only happen in accordance with how you have previously consented (defined) that they could happen. This applies to receiving comments and likes on your posts, approving comments on your posts (when they are allowed), receiving direct messages (DMs), and accessing (viewing) certain posts, files, or photos. This makes forte a network that is virtually spam, harassment, and stalking-proof—thus solving inconveniences that so disturb users of commercial social networks (and also some non-commercial networks).

An important element of this vision is the concept of a post as a conversation container: when you make a post, you not only define exactly who will be able to see it, but also who will be able to interact with it (either directly/immediately or moderated by you). In addition, participants in the conversation (the “commenters” on the post) will have access to the entire conversation, that is, to the comments of everyone who comments on that post—something that does not occur on many networks, such as X and other networks that only use the ActivityPub protocol.

The forte focus is on different forms of secure social interaction rather than additional forms of online publishing; for this reason, Macgirvin removed the wiki and webpage creation features (which he included several years ago in the Hubzilla network).

Nomadic identity. You can clone your channel (or channels) (with settings, contacts, and posts) to other forte instances, and thus automatically synchronize any changes or actions made to your channel in any of the instances to the other instances. So, if your original instance stops working for any reason (temporarily or permanently), you can continue using your channel as usual by logging in to one of the other instances where the channel is cloned. (This feature also exists on the Hubzilla and (streams) networks). You can also easily back up your channels (with settings, contacts, and posts) on your computer.

Privacy forte is a social network that has privacy and consent at the core of its design. We have gathered these features here and added one more. You can... 1) encrypt the text of direct messages; 2) set any date (and time) for a post to expire; 3) disable comments and likes on specific posts or on all posts; 4) moderate comments made on your posts; 5) create different access lists with your connections, to which you can then write specific posts; 6) make comments on your public posts visible only to your contacts; 7) set permissions that define which people can access certain posts, photos, or files on your channel; 8) create multiple identities (channels) in one account; 9) take advantage of the concept of a post as a conversation container (which allows you to read all the contributions to a conversation – contributions that have been previously consented to/defined by the person who made the post). 10) And, you can hide your contacts (their number and names) – even from your own contacts.

The public timeline (Public Stream) is disabled by default. The administrator of each instance can, if they wish, enable a Public Stream only from 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 posts from your contacts.

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

You can use forte on your computer (via your browser) or using a great PWA app on your phone; you don't need to download it, as it works in your browser and is pinned to your phone screen. Another advantage of this is that it does not depend on (nor suffer limitations or tracking from) commercial app stores.

Development

Having emerged in 2025, forte actually represents the continuity of a software developer's thinking and vision over 15 years. Yes, because in 2010 Mike Macgirvin created the social network Mistpark, renamed Friendica in 2012; in 2015 he created the Hubzilla network; in 2022 he created the (streams) network; and, after creating forte in 2025, he has been maintaining and developing the (streams) and forte networks.

So, something relevant to note is Macgirvin's particular way of working: rather than—as other software developers do – continue developing the same project over the years, keeping the same name and transforming it, Macgirvin apparently prefers to end a certain cycle of interest in the field of social network software development, hand over the completed project to another developer (and their participants community), and then move on to explore other possibilities, perspectives, and resources in a new software project. Naturally, this chronological sequence of software programs presents similarities and connections between them, existing as a lineage of software. Thus, today, the Friendica and Hubzilla networks are developed and maintained independently by other people, who are sometimes interested in incorporating into these software some of the innovations that Macgirvin introduces in (streams) and forte.

In the field of non-commercial social networks, several of the networks that emerged took a well-known commercial network as their initial reference and then, in addition to eliminating commercial features from their designs, created functionalities that did not exist in those networks. The social network built in 2010 by Macgirvin took Facebook—not Twitter—as its initial reference. When we say this, we are referring both to the number of features and ways of handling files, as well as the way in which “conversations” that arise from a given post (in its comments) are constituted and function.

Macgirvin also chose to carry out these movements on forte: a) forte does not has an official (“flagship”) instance under the management of its developer; nor does it has a website – there is only the software repository; b) forte instances do not inform how many participants they have.

To see what the "face" of the forte network looks like - or rather, one of its "faces" - visit this channel: Albums

What is it like to use the forte network? The experience of using the forte network is almost identical to the experience of using the network (streams), and similar to using the Hubzilla network—but compared to the latter, there are optimizations in terms of configuration panels, design, and additional features (and some removed). You will get a pretty good idea of what it's like to use forte by reading the text “What's it like using the Hubzilla network?”.

To create a forte instance – for one or several accounts/people

A person with an account on an instance can connect with people who have accounts on the same or other instances of the forte network, as well as with people on other networks that also use the ActivityPub protocol.

You will need technical knowledge about computers and the Internet (including the Linux terminal) to create your forte instance.

Access the forte network repository, install the software on a server, and create your instance. Installation instructions. (Additional information).

Maintaining an instance involves costs. There's the annual cost of the webhosting service – from US$ 43. And then there's the annual cost of the domain name (URL address) of the instance – starting at US$ 14.

To learn more about forte:

README – Mike Macgirvin (presentation of the network forte, made by the developer). Comparison between Mastodon, Friendica, Hubzilla, (streams) and Forte – Jupiter Rowland

CC0 1.0

May, 2025. Updated: Dec 21, 2025.

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