Disbigle

A federated social network that speaks ActivityPub and stays compatible with the diaspora* network.

Website: disbigle.com · Try it: app.disbigle.com (test instance: accounts and posts may be deleted)

• ActivityPub first: follow and be followed from Mastodon, Misskey, Pixelfed and the rest of the Fediverse.
• diaspora* compatible: talk to existing diaspora pods, and migrate a pod in place without losing identities.
• Aspects: share with the people you choose (family, friends, work…), not only "public" or "followers".

Features

• Accounts: registration (open, approval, invite-only, closed), passkeys, two-factor authentication, password reset, data export, account deletion and moves between servers.
• Sharing: posts in Markdown with media, content warnings, polls and hashtags; five audiences (public, unlisted, followers, aspects, direct); replies, reshares, likes, bookmarks, edits; private conversations.
• Timelines: home, local, federated, hashtags (followable), aspects, bookmarks; live updates over WebSocket; notifications, including Web Push.
• Federation: ActivityPub (Mastodon, Misskey, Pixelfed, Lemmy…) and the diaspora* protocol (diaspora, Friendica, Hubzilla); one account record per person even when they speak both.
• One conversation across networks: comments, likes and deletions made on diaspora* reach Mastodon and the rest of the Fediverse, and the other way round, on public threads and on private ones (only among the people they were shared with), through clearly labelled bridge accounts (user_at_domain@your.server). Replies between ActivityPub servers are forwarded to your followers, as Mastodon does, and new followers on other servers get your latest public posts.
• Migration: import an existing diaspora* pod on the same domain, keeping handles, keys and contacts.
• Moderation: approval queue, reports, suspensions, domain blocks, roles, audit log, editable instance settings and rules.
• Privacy: images stripped of metadata, remote media cached locally, visibility enforced in one place.
• Apps: the web client (English, Italian and Spanish; full width on desktop, notifications behind a bell at the top right, light theme by default with dark or system on request) installs as a PWA with push notifications; native apps for iOS (apps/ios, SwiftUI) and Android (apps/android, Jetpack Compose) are in the repository; Mastodon apps (Tusky, Ivory, Elk, Phanpy…) work too, through a Mastodon-compatible API with OAuth 2. Mastodon lists are your aspects.

Status: early development. A test instance runs at app.disbigle.com and federates with real diaspora* pods, Hubzilla and Mastodon. See docs/architettura.md (Italian) for the design, docs/decisions.md for implementation decisions and docs/deploy.md to run your own.

Screenshots

Home	Notifications

Profile with a poll	Mobile, dark theme

The name

Disbigle (Italian: disbiglio) is a made-up word. It was born when an angry father started to call his son disgraziato, changed his mind halfway through, and ended up with a brand new insult. Among friends it stuck as a fond way to tell someone they messed up.

Development

Requirements: Node.js 22.18+, pnpm, PostgreSQL 16+ and Redis 7+.

pnpm install
cp .env.example .env          # adjust DATABASE_URL, REDIS_URL, SESSION_SECRET
pnpm db:migrate               # creates the database if needed and applies migrations
pnpm dev                      # API on :3000, web client on :5173, worker

Open http://localhost:5173. The first account registered becomes the administrator. pnpm seed adds demo accounts (alice, bruno, carla; password disbigle-demo).

Useful commands:

Command	What it does
pnpm test	Unit and integration tests (needs PostgreSQL; set TEST_DATABASE_URL to a server where test databases can be created)
pnpm typecheck	Type checks every package
pnpm lint / pnpm format	Biome lint and format
pnpm db:generate	Generates a migration after editing packages/db/src/schema.ts

Layout

Path	Contents
apps/server	HTTP API, WebSocket streaming, federation endpoints
apps/worker	Federation delivery queue and maintenance jobs
apps/web	React web client
packages/core	Domain logic: accounts, posts, aspects, visibility, timelines
packages/db	Database schema and migrations
packages/activitypub	ActivityPub adapter (Fedify)
packages/diaspora	diaspora* protocol implementation
packages/diaspora-bridge	diaspora* federation: discovery, delivery queue, incoming entities, bridge identities
packages/diaspora-import	In-place migration of a diaspora* pod
packages/mastodon-api	Mastodon-compatible client API and OAuth 2
packages/shared	API types and schemas shared with the client
packages/config	Typed configuration

Contributing

Found a bug, have an idea or a better translation? Open an issue: the forms are in English, Spanish and Italian.

Thanks

• Diego (@diegoch64, diaspo.it): testing, Spanish translation, ideas, and the Android app on the users' side.

License

GNU Affero General Public License v3.0