Diaspora — Federated Social Network You Own and Control

Introduction

Diaspora is one of the earliest federated social networks, launched in 2010 as a privacy-respecting alternative to centralized platforms. It lets anyone run a node (called a pod) that federates with every other pod, so users stay connected without a single company controlling the data.

What Diaspora Does

• Provides a social stream with posts, comments, likes, and reshares
• Federates across pods using the Diaspora protocol for cross-server communication
• Organizes contacts into Aspects for fine-grained sharing control
• Supports hashtag discovery and public posts visible across the network
• Integrates with external services for cross-posting to Twitter and Tumblr

Architecture Overview

Diaspora is a Ruby on Rails application backed by PostgreSQL (or MySQL) and Redis. Sidekiq handles background jobs such as federation message delivery. Each pod runs independently, exchanging signed Salmon and ActivityStreams payloads with other pods via HTTPS. The frontend uses Backbone.js components served by the Rails asset pipeline.

Self-Hosting & Configuration

• Requires Ruby 3.x, PostgreSQL 12+, Redis, and Node.js for asset compilation
• Configure pod name, domain, mail server, and federation settings in diaspora.toml
• Run behind Nginx with SSL (federation requires HTTPS)
• Use systemd units for the Rails server and Sidekiq workers
• Periodic rake tasks handle database maintenance and federation cleanup

Key Features

• True data ownership: users can export and delete their data at any time
• Aspect-based sharing lets you segment audiences without public/private binary
• Hashtag following surfaces content across the entire federation
• Markdown support for rich-text posts
• Built-in account migration between pods

Comparison with Similar Tools

• Mastodon — microblogging focused, uses ActivityPub; Diaspora uses its own federation protocol
• Friendica — supports multiple protocols including Diaspora's; heavier install
• Pixelfed — photo-centric federated platform; Diaspora is general social
• Lemmy — link aggregation; Diaspora is a traditional social stream

FAQ

Q: Can Diaspora users interact with Mastodon users? A: Not natively. Diaspora uses its own protocol, though some bridges exist.

Q: How many active pods are there? A: The network has hundreds of active pods serving over a million registered accounts.

Q: Is moderation handled per-pod? A: Yes. Each pod administrator sets their own moderation policies and terms of service.

Q: Can I run a single-user pod? A: Absolutely. Many people run personal pods for maximum privacy control.

Sources

• https://github.com/diaspora/diaspora
• https://diasporafoundation.org/