Open source alternatives to Instagram, TikTok and WhatsApp are raising funds on Kickstarter

The developer behind it Pixelfed, Loopsand Supare now open source alternatives to Instagram, TikTok and WhatsApp respectively Fundraising on Kickstarter to encourage further development of programs.

The trio is part of a growing open social network known as fediverse, powered by the same ActivityPub protocol used by the X alternative. Mastodon. He saw the last one increased enrollment and use after the company formerly known as Twitter was sold to Elon Musk In and through October 2022 10 moves After the US presidential election.

In the months and years following that sale, open source and decentralized applications like Mastodon and Bluesky (Using the newer AT Protocol) continued to grow their user base as users sought an alternative to centralized social media apps run by billionaires like Musk and Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg.

Seeing the writing on the wall, even Meta realized that the fediverse needed to plant a flag. This led to it releasing its own X competitor in 2023 Instagram themeswhich is in process integrates With ActivityPub.

Now, Daniel Supernault, the Canadian-based developer behind the federated apps that challenge the Meta social media empire, is looking for funds to support the continued development and support of his open social community.

“Help put control back in the hands of the people!” said in a post In Mastodon where he announced Kickstarter’s Thursday edition.

At the time of writing, the campaign has surpassed its original goal with $58,383 raised so far.

Supernault wants its suite of apps to be the first company in the fediverse to reach a network of one billion people, but of course they still have a long way to go before they reach that lofty goal. Although Pixelfed has been around for years, just started for example, version 1.0 of its mobile app earlier this month and Loops still in alpha testing Apple test flight. Supmeanwhile, it hasn’t been released yet, but the Instagram page says it’s coming “soon.”

Both Loops and Sup will be released to Kickstarter backers.

The fourth project, Pubkitis also part of that effort, offering developers a set of tools to support building fediverse.

It includes interactive tools and testing frameworks that allow developers to mock popular activities in their services, create tools to inspect, debug, and test inbox and HTTP Signature applications to receive and debug activities in real-time.

This is the first time Supernault has turned to Kickstarter to help with this effort, which also aims to benefit the Pixelfed Foundation. (Stretch goal Kickstarter campaign (is to register the Pixelfed Foundation as a non-profit organization and grow its team beyond volunteers.)

If successful, the campaign will also fund a blogging app in the future as an alternative to Tumblr or Livejournal.

The funds will also help apps manage the flow of new users. Active Pixelfed.socialthe main Pixelfed copy (like Mastodon, anyone can run a Pixelfed server), now has more than 200,000 users, thanks in part to the mobile app launch, according to campaign details shared with TechCrunch.

The new funds will help expand the storage, CDNs and computing power needed for the growing user base and accelerate development. Additionally, they will help Supernault devote more of its time to apps and the fediverse as a whole, while expanding the moderation, safety, privacy and security programs that social apps need.

As part of its efforts, Supernault also wants to introduce E2E encryption for fediverse.