What is Friendica (friendi.ca)?

Updated

Friendica is a decentralized social network: instead of one company owning the whole platform, it runs as many smaller sites that can talk to each other. You reach it at friendi.ca, and the current release noted on the site is Friendica 2026.05. It suits people who want social posting and commenting without a single central authority, and who may want to run their own server.

How decentralization works here

Friendica's architecture has no central authority or ownership. The network is made up of smaller sites, and relationships can be made across any compatible system, creating a network of Internet scale. In practice, that means your account lives on one node, but you can follow, post to, and comment on people whose accounts live elsewhere.

The site describes seamless wall-to-wall posts and remote comments, even across different network nodes. So a conversation is not trapped inside one server's walls.

What you can do

  • Post and comment across nodes, with remote comments appearing in the same thread.
  • Build relationships across compatible systems rather than only inside one platform.
  • Choose where your account lives, because the network is composed of smaller sites.
  • Run your own server if you want to host your own node.

Who it is for

Friendica fits you if you want a social account that is not tied to a single owner and you are willing to pick a node or host one. It is free software built on free protocols, so the code and the rules of interaction are open rather than proprietary.

If you only want one familiar, centrally managed app with a single sign-up flow, a decentralized network will feel like more setup and more choices to make.

Getting started

  1. Go to friendi.ca and look at the "Try Friendica" entry to find a way in.
  2. If you would rather host, use the "Run your own server" path instead of joining an existing node.
  3. Once you have an account, follow people on other nodes to see cross-node posts and remote comments in action.

The main thing to verify before committing is which node you join or host, since that is where your account and data live.