No servers, no accounts, no algorithm: Discover an open-source peer-to-peer social network.
Ember is a desktop social network that runs with no servers at all. No accounts, no company in the middle, no feed algorithm.
Little explanation is in order!
- Your identity is a keypair on your own machine. No email, no sign-up.
- Your posts are a signed log on your device. People who follow you keep a copy and share it on, so your posts stay up even when you're offline.
- If nobody keeps a post around, it fades. Stories disappear after 24 hours.
- You discover people by meaning, not popularity: posts are slotted into "buckets", so writing about something puts you next to strangers writing about the same thing.
- Direct messages are end-to-end encrypted (text, images, voice notes) and wait in a queue while the other person is offline.
Status: alpha, tested between a handful of people between continents. Windows and Linux builds are on the Releases page. An Android client works but isn't released yet.
Try it: https://github.com/CRTnoise/ember-p2p
- The Windows build isn't code-signed yet, so SmartScreen will warn you: click More info → Run anyway. SHA-256 checksums are on the release page.
- On first launch, allow Ember on private AND public networks, or it can't find anyone.
A peer-to-peer network is only as alive as the people online, and right now that's mostly me and my test posts. Join then and we'll actually see each other in the swarm.
What I'd love feedback on: does "find people by meaning instead of followers" sound useful or weird? And what would make you open it a second time?
I built it with a lot of help from Claude. Happy to talk about how that went, too.
[Watch the demo!] https://streamable.com/gk2s5m