My friends and former colleagues Ivan and Mayel are crowdfunding now they along with other contributors have reached v1.0 of Bonfire, which they describe as “open, community-first social infrastructure.”

It’s well worth watching the fantastic video they’ve produced for the crowdfunder, as well as read this post by Erin Kissane which waxes lyrical about the approach they’re taking.

You could just look at this as just another federated social network client, but it’s much more than that. They’ve put so much thought, time, and energy into Bonfire — and it shows.

Welcome to the open social web: a growing constellation of people and interconnected apps reclaiming the web.

But most people aren’t here yet. They’re trapped in mainstream social media platforms controlled by billionaires, where feeds are manipulated, people are silenced, our data is sold, ads are everywhere, and platforms mutate or vanish overnight.

The solution isn’t another winner‑takes‑all platform, but a resilient, diverse web of interoperable services built on open protocols like ActivityPub, with bridges to other networks (AT Protocol/Bluesky) where useful. Today the fediverse spans ~18 million accounts across ~25,000 servers, and Bluesky boasts ~40 million sign‑ups. But we’re not betting on size, we’re inviting you to make one last migration from closed platforms to open, interoperable networks. Towards a world where your profiles, relationships, and data move with you. Where you can choose services based on features, safety, and care instead of being trapped by network effects. Where governance lives with communities, not a corporate owner.

We’re building Bonfire on different values, stoking our fire as the old model enshitifies, burns out, and makes room for the new. We focus on communities shaping our own spaces, with tools co‑designed and governed together, so online spaces can be made, moderated, and evolved with care.

After several years of tireless work, we’ve just launched Bonfire Social 1.0, built on our modular toolkit that’s fully customisable and extensible by design, which powers federated spaces that connect with Mastodon and the wider fediverse, balancing local autonomy with global conversation.

Source & image: Indiegogo