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carlnewton/habitat

Habitat is a free, open source, self-hosted social platform where people in a local area discuss their neighbourhood by location.

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What is it?

Habitat is a social platform built for local communities. Each instance covers a local area, and residents join to talk about local topics. Conversations can be tied to specific locations, so people can see what is being discussed nearby.

The project is free of advertising and charges nothing to use. Because it is self-hosted, a community or individual can run their own instance rather than relying on a central service. The code is licensed under AGPL-3.0.

The repository includes a Docker Compose setup that runs the app, a background worker and a PostgreSQL database behind Caddy, plus an Ansible playbook for hosting on a Linux server. A Docker-based development environment with Mailpit for local email testing is also provided.

Key features

  • 01Self-hosted instances that each serve a single local area
  • 02Location-based discussions tied to specific places
  • 03Docker Compose deployment with app, worker and PostgreSQL
  • 04Ansible playbook for setting up a Linux server
  • 05Free of ads and data harvesting, licensed under AGPL-3.0

Use cases

  • Running a social forum for a town, neighbourhood or village
  • Building a community space where local residents share nearby news and events
  • Hosting a privacy-focused alternative to general social networks for a local group

Quick start

  1. 1

    Create a docker-compose.yml file with the contents from the README

  2. 2

    Create a .env file next to it and set your domain and secrets

  3. 3

    Start Habitat with Docker Compose

    docker compose up -d

Things to know

  • Self-hosting requires a domain name, Docker, and careful setup of secrets and database credentials.
  • Licensed under AGPL-3.0, a copyleft license that requires sharing modified source code.

In collections

Self-hosted appsDatabases & SQL tools

Topics

#social-network#self-hosted#location-based#decentralised#symfony#docker#postgresql#decentralisation#decentralization#decentralized

FAQ

What is habitat?
Habitat is a free, open source, self-hosted social platform where people in a local area discuss their neighbourhood by location. Habitat is a social platform built for local communities. Each instance covers a local area, and residents join to talk about local topics. Conversations can be tied to specific locations, so people can see what is being discussed nearby.
Is habitat free to use? What license does it have?
habitat is open source under the AGPL-3.0 license. Check the license terms before using it in commercial products.
Is habitat still maintained?
Actively maintained. The last commit to habitat was on Oct 21, 2026.
What can I use habitat for?
Running a social forum for a town, neighbourhood or village Building a community space where local residents share nearby news and events Hosting a privacy-focused alternative to general social networks for a local group
How do I install habitat?
Create a docker-compose.yml file with the contents from the README Create a .env file next to it and set your domain and secrets Start Habitat with Docker Compose: docker compose up -d
Where can I get habitat?
The source code and installation instructions are on GitHub: https://github.com/carlnewton/habitat

Summary generated by AI from the project's README. GitHub stats refresh daily.

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