A curated list of peer-to-peer, federated, and local-first protocols, applications, and developer tools. Excludes cryptocurrency, tokens, and AI agents.
This page lists names, links and short descriptions. The original list on GitHub is the source and belongs to its authors.
W3C Recommendation (2018) for federated social networking, defining server-to-server and client-to-server APIs; the protocol behind most of the Fediverse.
The Authenticated Transfer Protocol, an open protocol for decentralized social networking with portable identities (DIDs), powering Bluesky; global views of the network rely on resource-intensive Relay and AppView services.
ActivityPub extension for federating software forges: a server-to-server API for pull requests, forks, and subscriptions; implemented experimentally by Forgejo.
Open specification for federated, persistent communication rooms whose history is replicated across every participating homeserver rather than owned by one; bridges connect it to other chat networks.
Minimal protocol in which cryptographically signed notes are published to any number of independent relays; identity is a client-side keypair, and removing content requires every relay carrying it to cooperate.
Offline-first gossip protocol that replicates signed append-only feeds between mutual follows over LAN or internet; no servers are required, though optional pub and room servers aid discovery.
The dominant peer-to-peer file-distribution protocol, specified as open BEPs; swarms find each other through trackers or the Mainline DHT.
Encrypted IPv6 overlay network with distributed hash table routing.
A network protocol stack for building secure, distributed, and privacy-preserving applications, with strong roots in academic research.
A fast, scalable, and secure peer-to-peer protocol for everyone (evolution of the Dat Protocol), now maintained by Holepunch as part of the Pear runtime.
The InterPlanetary File System, a content-addressed, peer-to-peer protocol for storing and sharing data; content stays retrievable only while some node pins it, and default nodes bootstrap through project-run infrastructure.
A content-addressed linked-data model underlying IPFS and related systems.
A toolkit for direct peer-to-peer connectivity: QUIC hole-punching, content-addressed blobs and document sync.
A modular peer-to-peer networking stack, the connectivity layer used by IPFS and many other decentralized projects.
A content-centric Internet architecture with active research implementations such as NFD.
W3C Recommendation (2021, with companion IETF RFCs) for direct browser-to-browser media and data channels; peers still need an application-provided signaling channel and commonly STUN/TURN servers to establish connections.
An end-to-end encrypted IPv6 overlay network that scales without central coordination.
A TypeScript framework for building federated server applications on ActivityPub.
A decentralized, real-time platform for building and running applications entirely on a peer-to-peer network; a ground-up rewrite by the original Freenet founder (the classic Freenet lives on as Hyphanet).
A peer-to-peer protocol for data sharing and integrity, backed by authoritative hashchains for data provenance.
A peer-to-peer application runtime and deployment system built on Hypercore, by Holepunch.
Distributed object-capability framework (Goblins, OCapN) for building the decentralized social web.
An open-source, peer-to-peer, mobile-first networked application framework with strong privacy, by Cult of the Dead Cow.
A specification for portable web apps that run inside chat messages and sync over any transport, with no server of their own.
A CRDT library for building local-first, collaborative applications that sync without a central server.
An offline-first, distributed, syncable, embedded document database for use in peer-to-peer software.
Library enabling consistent, zero latency read and write of shared information, using RDF (JSON-LD) and CRDTs. Dormant (no repository activity since 2024-08)
A collection of building blocks for local-first, peer-to-peer applications.
A protocol for synchronisable, multi-writer data stores, by the authors of Earthstar.
A high-performance CRDT for building collaborative, offline-first applications.
A modular framework for creating OpenWrt/LEDE-based firmwares for wireless mesh nodes.
Open-source, off-grid mesh communication over inexpensive LoRa radios; channel encryption defaults to a well-known shared key, with private channels and public-key direct messages available.
Cryptography-based networking stack for building resilient networks over almost any medium: LoRa, packet radio, WiFi or TCP/IP. Released under a custom non-OSI license with field-of-use restrictions.
W3C standard for globally unique, cryptographically verifiable identifiers that need no central registry.
DIF draft specification for personal datastores that sync between a user's own nodes with built-in permissions. Dormant (no repository activity since 2024-09)
A privacy-respecting mechanism for storing, indexing, and retrieving encrypted data at a storage provider.
An open protocol for decoupling data from apps.
Specification for personal data pods with app-agnostic access control, based on Linked Data principles; the published protocol is at version 0.10, but real-world deployment remains small.
Fork of Pleroma, a lightweight federated social networking server on ActivityPub.
Social network built on the AT Protocol; personal data servers are self-hostable, but in practice the network depends on resource-intensive Relay and AppView services that few parties other than Bluesky operate.
Modular open-source framework and application for building federated digital spaces.
Federated social reading and book reviews, on ActivityPub.
Federated social network with its own protocol, organized around aspects (contact groups); one of the oldest running Fediverse projects (2010).
Federated social platform that speaks several protocols at once — ActivityPub, diaspora*, and others — acting as a bridge between networks.
Lightweight ActivityPub social network server.
Federated publishing and social platform built on the Zot protocol, whose nomadic identity lets an account and its data move or mirror between servers.
Mobile client for Secure Scuttlebutt, an offline-first gossip protocol that syncs social feeds over LAN or internet; content can be encrypted, but the social graph and metadata are public by design.
Federated content aggregator and microblogging platform (community fork of /kbin), on ActivityPub.
Feature-rich federated microblogging platform on ActivityPub (Sharkey is a popular fork).
A federated tool that helps you find, create and organise events.
Federated link aggregator and discussion forum with a focus on moderation tooling, on ActivityPub.
Decentralized and federated profile builder with social networking features.
Self-hosted podcast hosting with ActivityPub federation.
A community-driven project that lets you listen and share music and audio within a decentralized, open network.
A free software media publishing platform alternative to Flickr, YouTube, SoundCloud.
Self-hosted live video streaming with ActivityPub federation.
Decentralized federated video streaming platform using P2P, ActivityPub and WebTorrent.
Minimalist federated blogging platform, on ActivityPub.
Peer-to-peer messenger over libp2p with Bluetooth LE and local-network proximity transports, requiring no accounts or servers; still beta software.
Encrypted message broadcasting in which every node relays every message, hiding who reads what; the network still runs, but the reference client's last release was in 2018.
Messenger that syncs over Tor when the internet works and over Bluetooth or Wi-Fi when it does not; relays only between mutual contacts, not strangers. Audited by Cure53 (2017).
Metadata-resistant group messenger built on Tor onion services, with untrusted relay servers for offline delivery.
Decentralized messenger with end-to-end encryption that works over the existing e-mail network.
Distributed peer-to-peer communication (text, voice and video), free and open-source.
Establish encrypted connections between you and your friends to create a network of computers, and provides various distributed services: forums, channels, chat, mail.
Maintained fork of Ricochet in which every user is a Tor onion service, leaving no server-side metadata; the original was audited by NCC Group (2016), before the v3 onion migration.
Private messenger without any user identifiers, using decentralized relay servers.
Free and open source cross-platform distributed version control system.
Self-hosted software forge (Gitea fork) implementing ActivityPub-based federation via ForgeFed.
A free and open source (GPL2) distributed version control system.
Secure peer-to-peer code collaboration without intermediaries.
Streaming file transfer over WebTorrent, entirely in the browser with nothing to install.
Transfers files between two computers using short one-time codes over a PAKE-encrypted connection; a public rendezvous server (self-hostable) assists the handshake.
Hosts the selected files as a hidden service on the user's computer.
End-to-end encrypted, peer-to-peer file storage, sharing and communication network.
Personal, content-addressed storage system designed for lifelong data archiving independent of any provider; development continues at a slow pace.
Continuous peer-to-peer file synchronization that works fully on a LAN with no internet; relay and discovery servers are optional and self-hostable.
A private, encrypted file storage system that decentralizes data across multiple servers.
Privacy enhanced BitTorrent client with P2P content discovery.
An in-browser torrenting that works without requiring users to install anything extra.
Real-time graph database that syncs between JavaScript peers, in practice through relay "super peers"; conflict resolution is eventually consistent, with optional encryption via its SEA module.
Peer-to-peer database engine of append-only, CRDT-merged logs replicated over IPFS pubsub; eventually consistent, with availability depending on which peers are online.
Anonymous friend-to-friend network built on queue-based messaging, designed to resist traffic analysis even by a global observer.
Formerly Freenet, a network aimed at activists and people living in repressive regimes (the new Freenet is a separate rewrite by the same founder). It uses a web of trust in high security mode, which makes users on the network very difficult to detect.
Decentralized garlic-routing overlay for hidden services and peer-to-peer applications; recent academic work documents design weaknesses across its implementations.
A minimal web browser for the distributed web. Supports IPFS, Hypercore Protocol + more.
A federated comment system for the open web built on Matrix.
Censorship-resistant mobile browser that shares and retrieves web content through the Ouinet peer-to-peer cache.
An interplanetary wayback machine.
Distributed Peer-to-Peer Web Search Engine and Intranet Search Appliance.
Set of protocols, libraries, techniques and guidelines for secure management of sensitive data such as cryptographic keys.
Decentralized, cryptographic identity proofs; a self-hostable Keybase alternative.
A standard format for blockchain timestamping.
Mongodb-like database on top of OrbitDB. Discontinued
A technology to enable decentralized and user-owned governance and reputation management for a community. Discontinued
A peer-to-peer Web browser, made for users to run applications independently of hosts. Discontinued
A scalable database that layers blockchain technology over decentralized data. Discontinued
Decentralized / distributed anonymous peer-to-peer media network. YouTube meets BitTorrent meets Bitcoin. Discontinued
The World's First Virtual Nation – a Blockchain Jurisdiction. Discontinued (domain no longer controlled by the project; link goes to an archived copy).
A distributed caching platform. Discontinued
An open-source P2P web application platform for decentralized, privacy-preserving software. Discontinued
Future-friendly apps for your research data pipeline. Discontinued (the Dat project wound down).
A markdown blog system for Beaker inspired by Medium. Discontinued
A disaster-resilient communications network powered by the sun. Discontinued
Peer-to-peer audio publishing and streaming application. Discontinued (repository deleted).
Decentralized Git repo hosting and issue tracking on secure-scuttlebutt. Discontinued (repository archived in 2018).
A federated database network built on BigchainDB and IPFS. It is maintained by a network of caretakers around the world, at least half of which are nonprofits. Discontinued
A decentralised digital identity for everyone. Discontinued (domain squatted; link goes to an archived copy).
A leftist news aggregator designed for an open web, and dedicated to journalism without censorship. Discontinued
A community effort to implement experimental APIs enabling dweb protocols in Firefox. Discontinued
A media library built on IPFS that makes it easy to publish, track, and discover creative work. Discontinued (acquired by Spotify in 2017).
Domain registrar for Blockstack. Discontinued
Marketplace, with store fronts and moderators. Discontinued (shut down in 2021).
The Onion Router Cloud, a distributed, anonymous, object storage platform owned and operated by all of us. Discontinued
A decentralized messaging and sharing app built on top of Secure Scuttlebutt. Discontinued (repository archived; successor: Manyverse).
A realtime P2P collaborative editing tool, powered by IPFS and CRDTs. Discontinued
Completely anonymous and potentially metadata-free chat Discontinued
Decentralized social network defined as a shared JSON specification, whose clients ran over the Dat protocol; it faded when the Dat ecosystem wound down. Discontinued
A platform for the self-hosted, peer-to-peer, cryptographically-secured internet. Discontinued
Decentralized hosting infrastructure for dApps. Discontinued
A searchable, syncable, content-addressable notetaking system Discontinued
A distributed storage platform and content distribution service of the Ethereum stack; the original Go implementation was archived, but the project remains active through the Bee implementation. Excluded (modern Swarm depends on BZZ token economics, out of scope for this list; kept here for the…
Encrypted, decentralized Twitter-style microblogging built on a web of trust, by Freenet's founder. Discontinued
Encrypted, decentralized Twitter-style microblogging built on syndicated feeds. Discontinued
A fully decentralized P2P microblogging platform leveraging the free software implementations of Bitcoin and BitTorrent protocols. Discontinued
JavaScript library that decouples user data from apps and hosts it on IPFS. Discontinued (Fission shut down in 2024).
A peer-to-peer version of Wikipedia. Discontinued
A collection of interesting new networks and technologies aiming at decentralisation.
Resources for creating a Decentralized, Vendor Agnostic, Self Sovereign Identity System for people organizations and things.
Content, tools, and infrastructure for keeping knowledge accessible without the internet.
A curated list of open protocols, applications, hardware, and resources for communication during internet shutdowns, disasters, censorship, and off-grid operation.
A curated list of Fediverse applications and services.
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