Known: social publishing for groups and individuals

Known is an open-source social publishing platform that enables individuals and groups to create collaborative sites for sharing blog posts, status updates, photographs, and more.

🚀 Overview

Known (also known as Idno) is a flexible, self-hosted social publishing engine designed for the decentralized web. It allows multiple authors to contribute to a single site, blending blogging, microblogging, and social networking features with IndieWeb standards like Webmention and ActivityPub for cross-site interactions.

This project solves the problem of centralized social media platforms by providing an open, extensible alternative where users own their data, control their privacy, and can federate with other sites. It's built for bloggers, non-profits, media organizations (like KQED), communities, and anyone wanting a personal or group publishing hub without vendor lock-in.

Developed by the open-source community under the idno organization, Known was created to empower decentralized publishing, making it easy to build and customize social experiences on your own server.

✨ Key Features

Multi-author collaboration: Invite unlimited users to post blogs, notes, photos, and media to a shared site.
IndieWeb integration: Supports Webmention, ActivityPub, bookmarking, and responding to content across sites.
Bookmarklet and mobile-friendly: Post from anywhere with a browser bookmarklet; fully responsive design for all devices.
Customization: Plugin system, themes, custom JS/CSS, #tags for organization, RSS/JSON feeds, email notifications, privacy controls, and static pages.
Upcoming: Continued enhancements to async processing and federation support.

🛠 Tech Stack

Frontend: Custom themes with SCSS, CSS, JavaScript
Backend: PHP 8.3+
Database: MongoDB or other supported backends (e.g., via config)
Auth: Custom user management with plugins
Hosting: Self-hosted (Composer, Git clone; supports Docker)

👥 Who Is This For?

This project is useful for:

Bloggers and individuals who want a personal site with social features
Groups and communities looking for collaborative publishing
Developers and indie makers building customizable social platforms

📸 Screenshots / Demo

Live demo: Self-hosted; try installing via GitHub
GitHub: https://github.com/idno/known

🔥 Project Status

🟢 Actively building

Last updated: 2026-03-24

❓ FAQ

Is this project free?

Yes / Open Source (Fully free to self-host; Apache license. Previously offered hosted plans on withknown.com, now focused on open-source.)

Is the source code available?

Yes — https://github.com/idno/known

Can I contribute?

Yes — fork the repo, submit PRs, report issues on GitHub, or join the mailing list at https://groups.google.com/g/known-dev for discussions and feedback.