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Splintr is a federated social network that anyone can host on their own server. You own your data, control who sees it, and can connect with people on other Splintr servers without giving up that control.

If this server allows registration, click Sign Up in the navigation bar. You will need a username, email address, and password. Some servers require an invitation from an existing member.

In Splintr, your account is called a node — it is your identity on the network. A server that hosts multiple user accounts is called a cluster. A server can also be set up as a single node, where one person owns the entire site. Either way, your node can connect with nodes on other servers through federation.

From your feed, type in the editor at the top and press Post. Posts support Markdown formatting: **bold**, *italic*, # Heading, and links with [text](url).

Yes. Use the media uploader in the post editor to attach images. Uploaded media is stored on your server and served through signed URLs for privacy.

You choose per-post or set a default in your privacy settings. Options include public, friends only, specific friend groups, selected users, and private. Friend groups let you share with a curated list — for example, a "Close Friends" group — without making content visible to your entire friend list.

Visit their profile on their server. If you are logged in to your home server, you can send a friend request through the federation handshake — your servers will securely verify each other's identity and establish the connection between your nodes.

See the About page for more on how federation works.

You will not be able to see new posts from nodes on that server until it comes back. Your local data — your own posts, your friend list — is unaffected. Federation is designed to degrade gracefully when remote servers are unavailable.

Yes, at multiple levels. All connections between servers use HTTPS (TLS). Sensitive profile data like email addresses are encrypted at rest in the database, and your password is hashed with bcrypt.

Every post is cryptographically signed with your personal Ed25519 key, which lets anyone verify that you are the real author and that the content has not been tampered with — especially useful for posts shared across federated servers.

Private messages use end-to-end hybrid encryption: each message is encrypted with a random session key, and that session key is then encrypted separately for each recipient using their public key.

Once logged in, open Privacy from the sidebar menu. You can control who sees your profile, posts, friends list, and bookmarks. Settings apply to both local and federated visitors.