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Friendica

COMMS
Velocity0.0

Federated open-source social communication platform

friendi.ca ↗

Friendica keeps betting on being the fediverse node that speaks everyone else's protocols.

fediverseactivitypubbluesky-bridgeself-hosteduser-defined-algorithmprotocol-deprecation
◆Current state
Friendica is a self-hosted decentralised social platform, released on calendar versions two or three times a year with codenames and a consistent structure: a handful of highlights, a security-fix credit, and a pointer to the changelog. The recent run — 2023.12, 2024.03, 2024.08, 2024.12, 2026.01, 2026.05 — shows the cadence thinning, with a full year between 2024.12 and 2026.01. Nearly every release credits externally reported security issues, most recently from Doyensec working with Mastodon.
◆Where it's heading
Two lines of work dominate. The first is connectors: an initial Bluesky bridge in 2023.05 made bi-directional by 2023.12, Tumblr support maintained throughout, and ATproto account integration plus Bridgy Fed support improved in 2026.05. The second is Channels — the user-defined algorithm for sorting the network stream — introduced in 2023.12 and given performance and sorting work in every release since. Running against both is a deliberate pruning of legacy: OStatus dropped in 2024.12 after the project measured how few servers still needed it, and the fancybox addon deprecated alongside it.
◆Prediction
Expect the next release to continue the ATproto and Bridgy Fed integration work and further Channels performance tuning, with the accessibility review started in 2026.01 producing more fixes. Given the year-long gap before 2026.01, the cadence itself is the uncertain part.

◆Recent moves

  1. 2mo ago

    Friendica 2026.05 deepens ATproto and Bridgy Fed support

    The Blutwurz release extends the bridging thesis rather than changing it — better ATproto account integration and Bridgy Fed support, plus frio theme UI work, performance fixes, and a new addon for handling images. It also carries security fixes reported via Doyensec and Mastodon, which by now is a standing feature of every Friendica release.

    View source ↗
  2. 6mo ago

    Friendica 2026.01 adds sortable channels and admin block-list portability

    The first release after a year-long gap, and it concentrates on the Channels feature and moderation: users can sort widgets and channels, channel performance improved, and admins can export and import contact block lists or bar non-logged-in visitors. It also carries the first results of an external accessibility review, which is new territory for the project.

    View source ↗
  3. 1y ago

    Friendica drops OStatus support in 2024.12

    ⚡ SPARK

    The release where Friendica stops trying to speak every federation protocol ever invented: OStatus, ActivityPub's predecessor, is removed after the project measured how few servers and contacts still depended on it. A Prometheus exporter, REUSE compliance and FEP-67ff support round it out — the same consolidation impulse applied to tooling and standards.

    View source ↗
  4. 1y ago

    Friendica 2024.08 adds Zabbix and Grafana monitoring endpoints

    System resource usage and performance improved across several areas, and monitoring endpoints for tools like Zabbix and Grafana were added — the beginning of the operations-facing work that the Prometheus exporter continues four months later. Link display was also shortened to a configurable default of 30 characters. Multiple externally reported security issues were fixed, with a strong recommendation that admins update.

    View source ↗
  5. 2y ago

    Friendica 2024.03 adds OCR-generated image descriptions

    An optional Tesseract-based addon generates missing image descriptions from text found in the image, which is a practical accessibility win for a network where alt text is inconsistently supplied. Channels — introduced the previous release — got further work, alongside performance optimisation and several externally reported security fixes.

    View source ↗
  6. 2y ago

    Friendica 2023.12 makes the Bluesky bridge two-way and ships Channels

    ⚡ SPARK

    The release that set the agenda for everything after it: the Bluesky connector became bi-directional, and Channels arrived as a user-defined algorithm for sorting the network stream. Groups were renamed to Circles and forum accounts to Group accounts, and users gained the ability to file moderation reports for node admins to review.

    View source ↗