What Diaspora* does

Diaspora* is a decentralized, federated social network project operated by the Diaspora Foundation, a non-profit organization incorporated in the United States and headquartered in San Francisco. The project was founded in 2010 around three principles — decentralization, freedom, and privacy — and operates on independently run servers called 'pods' that interconnect via a federation protocol, allowing users on any pod to communicate across the global network. The software is built in Ruby on Rails, hosted as open-source code on GitHub under the diaspora* organization, and is released free of charge under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License. Key product features include the proprietary 'Aspects' system for granular contact grouping and selective post sharing, native cross-posting to Twitter, Tumblr, and WordPress, hashtag-based content discovery, @mentions, resharing, and likes. The software is internationalized across 30+ language locales, managed via the WebTranslateIt translation platform. Distribution is entirely community-driven: users discover pods through Fediverse Observer ratings or host their own using documentation maintained on the project's wiki and Discourse forum.

Diaspora* does not operate a commercial revenue model. There is no pricing, no paid tier, no advertising, and no data monetization. The project is sustained by volunteer contributions and donations to the Diaspora Foundation. Individual pod operators may independently incur and cover hosting costs, but the core software and foundation do not generate revenue. No funding rounds, venture investment, parent company, or institutional backers are disclosed. The marketing and GTM motion is exclusively community-led: official blog, wiki, Discourse forum, GitHub, and IRC (#diaspora on Libera.Chat) constitute the full channel set, with no paid advertising, sales organization, or geographic expansion programs.

The user base consists entirely of individuals rather than enterprises: privacy-conscious individuals seeking alternatives to centralized networks, decentralized-web / Fediverse enthusiasts interested in platform interoperability, and community contributors who run pods, write code, translate the software, and provide support. Within this audience, Diaspora* competes with other Fediverse-adjacent projects (Mastodon, Friendica, Hubzilla, etc.) rather than mainstream social platforms, and differentiation is anchored on architectural decentralization and the Aspects privacy primitive rather than scale or feature velocity.

Name

Diaspora*

Legal name

Diaspora Foundation

Website

https://diasporafoundation.org

Company type

Private

Founded year

2010

Operating status

Operating

Headcount range

1,001–5,000 employees

Short description

Diaspora* is a non-profit, open-source decentralized social network operated by the Diaspora Foundation, where users join independently run servers (pods) that federate globally via a custom protocol, serving privacy-conscious individuals and Fediverse enthusiasts who want data ownership and freedom from centralized platforms.

Ownership category

akta.pro rank

Headquarters

HQ city

San Francisco

HQ country

United States

HQ region

North America

Markets served

GTM type

B2C

Offering type

Software

Cost components

Technology or R&D, Infrastructure, Operations, Personnel

Revenue model

1. No Commercial Revenue Model: Diaspora* is a non-profit, community-driven open-source project. There is no commercial revenue model. The project operates on donations and volunteer effort. Individual pod operators may have their own costs/funding models but the core project itself does not generate revenue.

Pricing tiers

Go-to-market motion1 record

Distribution channels2 records

Marketing channels5 records

Core offering

Diaspora* is a free, open-source decentralized social networking platform that operates on independently run servers called "pods." Users register on any pod and can communicate seamlessly across the entire federation worldwide. The software emphasizes user privacy, data ownership, freedom from corporate control, and includes the proprietary "Aspects" feature for selective content sharing with contact groups.

Product overview

Diaspora* is a single unified product: a decentralized, federated social network software. The core offering is the diaspora* software itself, which enables users to run their own pods (servers) or join existing ones to participate in a privacy-focused social network. The software includes features such as the unique 'Aspects' system for organizing contacts and controlling post visibility, hashtag support for following interests, @mention functionality, resharing, and likes. The project also maintains official documentation (wiki), discussion forums (Discourse), and translation infrastructure via WebTranslateIt. Cross-posting to external services (Twitter, Tumblr, WordPress) allows interoperability with mainstream social platforms.

Differentiator

Problem solved

Functional benefit

Products and services

• Diaspora* Software (decentralized social network)

Quantifiable outcome

• Users maintain ownership and control of their personal data across all interactions

Segments3 records

Ideal customer profiles3 records

Technology focussed Yes

API detail

Has API

No

API docs

API detail

Core technology

AI maturity

App detail

Integration6 records

Feature4 records

Scale indicators1 record

Recent moves5 records

Expansion highlights4 records

Direct peers

• Hubzilla: Hubzilla is an open-source, federated platform supporting the Zot/Hubzilla protocol as well as ActivityPub and Diaspora* federation. It targets similar privacy- and decentralization-focused users with overlapping feature sets including cross-protocol connectivity that competes directly with Diaspora*.
• Pleroma / Akkoma: Pleroma (now Akkoma) is a lightweight, federated microblogging server built on ActivityPub. Like Diaspora*, it is open source and self-hostable, and serves the same privacy-conscious and Fediverse-curious user base with comparable technical and community positioning.
• PixelFed: PixelFed is an open-source, federated image-sharing platform built on ActivityPub. It targets the same decentralized, privacy-respecting social networking community as Diaspora* but specializes in photo sharing, competing for the same Fediverse user base in an adjacent category.
• Misskey: Misskey is an open-source, federated microblogging platform on ActivityPub popular in Japan and increasingly globally. It competes for the same decentralized social networking audience as Diaspora* and offers richer UX that has drawn users away from older fediverse platforms.
• Minds: Minds is an open-source social network with a privacy and token-incentive model. It overlaps with Diaspora* in serving users who reject data-harvesting centralized social networks, offering native end-to-end encryption and an alternative monetization model that competes for the same segment.
• Bluesky Social: Bluesky is a venture-backed decentralized microblogging network built on the AT Protocol. Like Diaspora*, it targets users seeking an alternative to centralized incumbents (especially X/Twitter), but competes in a fundamentally different architectural paradigm that pressures Diaspora* for the same privacy-conscious user base.
• Friendica: Friendica is an open-source, federated social network compatible with the Diaspora* and ActivityPub protocols. It is a direct competitor within the same protocol stack and shares Diaspora*'s community-driven, volunteer-maintained ethos and multi-protocol federation capabilities.
• GNU Social: GNU Social is a federated microblogging platform and a predecessor in the fediverse space, supporting the OStatus and ActivityPub protocols. It shares Diaspora*'s volunteer-driven, open-source roots and federated architecture and competes for the same tech-savvy, freedom-oriented user segment.
• Mastodon: Mastodon is the leading federated social network in the Fediverse, built on ActivityPub and offering similar decentralization and privacy positioning. It is the most direct competitive peer to Diaspora*, attracting many of the same privacy-conscious and fediverse-curious users with comparable multi-pod architecture and cross-platform federation.

Emerging players

• Steemit: Steemit is a blockchain-based social platform that rewards content creators with cryptocurrency. While operating on a different underlying technology, it competes for the same privacy- and decentralization-oriented user segment that Diaspora* serves, particularly users skeptical of corporate-owned social networks.

Market position

Strengths5 records

Weaknesses5 records

Competitive moat5 records

Key risks6 records

Key highlights6 records

Customer concentration

• GitHubgithub.com/diaspora
• Xx.com/joindiaspora

Revenue estimate

Valuation estimate

Number of profiles

Funding overview

Funding rounds

Investors

Funding detail is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

M&A

Investments

M&A and investment is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

Frequently asked questions about Diaspora*