Bonfire
A modular framework for building federated social networks, written in Elixir. Unlike Mastodon (a finished product), Bonfire is a toolkit where communities assemble their own platform from "extensions". ActivityPub-compatible.
Philosophy: different communities need different social media → Bonfire lets you pick modules (microblog, groups, forums, classification) and deeply customize moderation + privacy. "Bonfire Social" and "Bonfire Communities" are ready-made assemblies. Federates with the rest of the Fediverse via ActivityPub. Strong emphasis on community control, consent-based federation, and granular privacy. Early stage/niche compared to Mastodon but architecturally interesting. Part of the broader Fediverse experimentation wave (Bonfire, GoToSocial, Sharkey) exploring alternatives to Mastodon's model.