WriteFreely
Minimalist federated blogging platform built on ActivityPub
Overview
WriteFreely is a clean, distraction-free writing platform that federates via ActivityPub, letting blogs connect to Mastodon and other fediverse services. It supports multi-user instances, custom domains, and a reader feed for following other WriteFreely blogs. The interface is intentionally minimal: no comments, no like counts, just writing. Deploy as a single Go binary backed by MySQL or SQLite.
Where it falls short of Medium
- No paid subscription or paywall support for monetizing writing (unlike Substack)
- Very limited customization: no themes, plugins, or sidebar widgets
- No built-in email newsletter delivery to subscriber inboxes
- No analytics, comments system, or social engagement features
We list the gaps honestly so you can decide if the trade-off is worth owning your data.
Tags
Claim this listing to keep it accurate, add a deploy template, or feature it on relevant pages.
Embed the WriteFreely difficulty badge in your README — it links back here.
[](https://openreplace.com/writefreely)Similar open-source projects
Other self-hostable tools in the same space worth comparing.
Leading open-source headless CMS with flexible API and content type builder
Modern open-source publishing platform for blogs and newsletters
Developer-first headless CMS and application framework built with TypeScript
World's most widely used open-source CMS and blogging engine