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Introducing Habitat - A Social Platform for Local Communities (lemmy.ml)
submitted 2 weeks ago by carlnewton@feddit.uk to c/fediverse@lemmy.ml
15 comments fedilink hide all child comments

cross-posted from: https://feddit.uk/post/45160073

I've been working on Habitat for the past two years. It all stemmed from this idea that I posted in April 2024.

Habitat is a free open-source, self hosted social platform for local communities. It is aimed at fostering local community discussions and discovery of areas of interest. This is why it is built primarily around location. A Habitat instance centers on a specific area, and the local community can make generic posts about that area, or they can make posts about specific locations in that area. More about what I've been building and the future plans here.

Features

  • Habitat specification of location and size - enabling posts related to the local area
  • Home feed - Displays the most recent posts
  • Nearby feed - Displays posts sorted by proximity to the user
  • Create posts - Upload photos, set locations, comments
  • Categories - Location rules
  • Amazon S3 image storage option
  • Personalisation - Overrides Habitat defaults per user: kms/miles, hidden categories
  • Moderation tools - User, post, comment moderation, block email addresses
  • Announcements - Scheduled announcements
  • Public moderation log - Keep moderator actions visible for 30 days

If you're interest in this at all, please give it a spin and let me know how you get on. I'll keep an eye here on Lemmy, but you can also post to the Habitat discussion board on GitHub.

all 16 comments
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[-] eodur@piefed.social 4 points 2 weeks ago

Are categories already supported, and can they effectively act as groups? Like your example of a reading club, or maybe for a specific neighborhood.

[-] carlnewton@feddit.uk 2 points 2 weeks ago

Yes, categories are built in, but act more like labels to the main feed. You can look at a category homepage to see posts only in that category and hide posts from your main feed that belong in a category.

[-] HotDayBreeze@lemmy.world 3 points 2 weeks ago

I want an instance of this in my local community. I would pay to host it, but I don't want to be the admin. I am going to follow you and when the project is further along, I'll figure out how to get one running in my neighborhood and promote it.

[-] mitram@sopuli.xyz 3 points 2 weeks ago

Does it support activityPub?

[-] carlnewton@feddit.uk 3 points 2 weeks ago

This release is step 1. Federation is step 2 -- see here: https://carlnewton.github.io/posts/building-habitat/

I probably won't be using activity pub though, as great as it is, I don't think it's right for this project.

[-] mitram@sopuli.xyz 2 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago)

~~Then how can it be part of the fediverse.~~

~~Not trying to dissuade you, the project looks very cool, I just don't understand how this post fits in this specific community. Perfectly adequate to be in sepf-hosted though.~~

Forget what I said, after refreshing my memory on what the fediverse is, I understand I was wrong.

Cool project, I'll be watching how it evolved.

[-] carlnewton@feddit.uk 3 points 2 weeks ago

It isn't yet federated, but the plan is to use a gossip protocol system to connect instances: https://carlnewton.github.io/posts/location-based-social-network/#connecting-instances

I cross posted it here because this community seemed excited by the prospect.

[-] mitram@sopuli.xyz 2 points 2 weeks ago

Sorry about that. I was using the wrong "definition" of fediverse, this project fits in perfectly here.

[-] carlnewton@feddit.uk 2 points 2 weeks ago

No worries, I appreciate the feedback! I was afraid that these posts would go without a single discussion!

[-] artyom@piefed.social 1 points 2 weeks ago

Demo?

[-] carlnewton@feddit.uk 4 points 2 weeks ago

My local instance is www.irthlingborough.net

[-] artyom@piefed.social 0 points 2 weeks ago

No dark mode?

[-] carlnewton@feddit.uk 2 points 2 weeks ago

Not yet but the ground work is there for that: https://github.com/carlnewton/habitat/blob/main/templates/base.html.twig#L2 I just need to actually implement that feature now.

[-] artyom@piefed.social 2 points 2 weeks ago

Sweet, thanks!

[-] solrize@lemmy.ml 0 points 2 weeks ago

"Federated" and "local" sound like they are at cross purposes, but ok.

this post was submitted on 01 Mar 2026
60 points (100.0% liked)

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