Bonfire

Today is announcement day 🔥

Bonfire is shifting its centre of gravity: from social features to community tools. Four things ship today, and the whole story is here: bonfirenetworks.org/posts/bo...

1. Bonfire for communities

Groups and topics, community rules, decision-making (from quick polls through structured consensus to weighted score voting, where an objection can count for more than an approval), events, shared organisation profiles, announcements.

A ready-to-use space you can then take apart: add what's missing, fork what almost fits, switch off what you don't need.

1. Our first Mosaic case study

Six months with Jacobin's German edition, building jacobin.social from the ground up: a home for 3,000+ readers, wired into their Ghost publication, in their language and their look and feel. Their readers crowdfunded the project, which included a reboot of the magazine and a new community space. Now every publisher can benefit. What one community funds, every community inherits. Details: bonfirenetworks.org/case-stu...

1. A deep Ghost integration

Keep publishing exactly as you do now, and Bonfire can become the home for everything that happens around the work: your archive imported, new articles followed, members and tiers synced, sign-in through Ghost, federated discussion under every piece. Details: bonfirenetworks.org/ghost/

1. The Telling

One script tag turns any web page into a federated conversation. Readers reply with an account they already have, on Bonfire, Mastodon, anywhere. The thread lives on your server, and you can take it with you. Details: bonfirenetworks.org/telling/

Being straight with you: this is a 1.0 beta. Groups work within a server and don't federate yet. We're designing that in the open with the W3C groups task force, because we'd rather it work across the whole fediverse than ship a dialect only Bonfire speaks.

Want to poke at it? Groups are live on the campground, our open test instance. Make an account and try it out: campground.bonfire.cafe

Finally, we've rebuilt the website to reflect the new direction: bonfirenetworks.org/

Now back to following up with crowdfunding backers to organise install parties, co-design workshops, and other rewards. Thank you for your patience 💛 #fediverse #ActivityPub

If you're in Amsterdam this Saturday join us for reading of Ada & Zangemann by @kirschner@mastodon.social & Sandra Brandstätter in English and in Dutch, followed by a conversation about Free Software maintenance as care work, together with @mayel@bonfire.cafe from Bonfire, at the @internetarchiveeurope@toot.community, Oudeschans 16, Amsterdam on Saturday Feb 14th at 14:00. More information and RSVP here.

Hi everyone! We’re excited to share some updates:

Bonfire 1.0.1 is out! 🎉
This release is all about making your social web experience livelier, more connected, and truly yours. It brings features like following hashtags, scheduled posts, dashboard widgets, and more. This is the very first delivery from the maintenance work funded by your incredible support. Thank you for helping us reach this milestone and keep Bonfire thriving!

For details about the release see our latest blog post: Bonfire 1.0.1: Building Momentum

What’s next for crowdfunding?

If you're an existing backer, the pledge manager is now open. Please keep an eye out for updates there so we can start preparing rewards for you.

The campaign is open again for the next month. With core maintenance funded, every new pledge (or increased pledge from existing backers) now goes directly toward our first stretch goal: federated groups. Support or share our extended campaign to help fund community-owned, cross-instance spaces for real collaboration and self-governance.

Bonus good news: Thanks to a new grant, end-to-end encrypted messaging in Bonfire is now funded and in development!

Thank you once again for being part of the Bonfire movement! Your feedback, support, and community spirit make all of this possible. If you have questions or want to get involved, reach out or come say hello at FOSDEM if you’re in Brussels at the end of January!

With gratitude,
The Bonfire Team

🚄 The Bonfire team is rolling into Brussels for FOSDEM 2026!

Come find us at one of Europe’s biggest free software gatherings, with over 8,000 people, dozens of devrooms, and all things open source. We’re giving two talks this weekend (and both will be livestreamed at the links below, so you can join from anywhere, with recordings up afterward):

Building Modular, Consentful, and Federated Social Networks
🎥 Social Web devroom
🗓️ Saturday, Jan 31st, 17:10–17:30 CET
🌐 Local time where you are

Modular Communication Tools on the Open Social Web
🎥 Decentralised Communication devroom
🗓️ Sunday, Feb 1st, 14:45–15:15 CET
🌐 Local time where you are

We’ll be sharing more about the why and how of Bonfire and our ecosystem, hands-on demos, announcing new alliances, and real stories from communities using Bonfire today.

We can’t wait to connect with the open source and fediverse crowd, swap ideas, and meet anyone passionate about building healthier, more flexible, and consentful digital spaces. Whether you’re a developer, community organiser, or just fediverse-curious, come say hi!

We just released Bonfire 1.0.2, an update focused on giving you a more stable and reliable experience.

We're also heads-down working with several communities who are setting up their own Bonfire servers.

Plus updates on end to end encryption and federated groups.

More details: bonfirenetworks.org/posts/bo...

On Saturday May 9th in Rome, as part of the Nina Festival, we're hosting a workshop to think with Bonfire, exploring and co-designing federated digital spaces for caring for our communities.
Together with @reclaimthetech@mastodon.uno, Zero81, Scift Lab and more.
📍 Millepiani, Via Odero 13, 3pm
If you're in (or near) Rome, come join us!