Bonfire Social Debuts Modular, Federated Social Platform

Bonfire Social, a new open-source software platform built on the ActivityPub protocol, officially launched this week, offering communities a customizable alternative to traditional, centralized social networks. Unveiled during the FediForum online conference, Bonfire emphasizes user autonomy, enabling groups to build their own social apps with flexible tools, independent governance, and no ties to venture capital.

Unlike Mastodon, which also uses ActivityPub, Bonfire is designed to be modular – allowing communities to choose which features to enable, how the platform behaves, and even what the user experience looks like. The system is organized around “flavors,” or pre-configured bundles of features that serve as starting templates for specific use cases, such as community building or scientific collaboration. Each flavor can be further customized by users or administrators.

Bonfire supports a wide range of features adapted from other platforms including advanced options like nested discussions, multi-profile accounts, access control layers, and private Circles – an idea reminiscent of Google+ that lets users share content with specific groups. This also includes a custom feed builder that requires no coding to use effectively, with direct messaging and private group chats also being optional choices.

Currently, the platform is purely self-hosted, but Bonfire is apparently looking into hosting service options that will work with its non-profit structure. If the platform takes off, it may lead to a number of new social spaces cropping up around specific niches and topics, all using this hosting and construction system to build tailor-made platforms for targeted audiences.