circles.diy

A social platform for communities, creators and collaborators.

circles.diy is shifting the tide of social networking. Mainstream platforms have twisted creativity and community into raw material for profit, attention and control. They exploit your data, optimise for addiction and quietly erode communication with content-delivery algorithms.

We believe in building digital spaces where creativity and community thrive on their own terms, where people gather in circles that they shape, sustain and own as a collective - without hidden influence.

The secret of change is to focus all of your energy, not on fighting the old, but on building the new.

How can circles.diy be different if it's just another social platform?

The million dollar question, one we think about a lot. The critical flaws of conventional platforms are well known and we have dared to propose an alternative approach:

The Revenue Model

Conventional social platforms are “free” because of the ad-based revenue model behind the curtain. This model inherently creates a business incentive towards dark software patterns and engagement-hacking. To prevent it, the money has to come from somewhere else.

We’ve looked to the past for wisdom - to methods that have long sustained real communities through contribution and shared stewardship. In doing so, we landed on a model that balances digital independence with collective sustainability, built on three pillars:

1. Decentralise the networks
   Each instance of circles.diy can host the infrastructure for many users and many circles. A single instance can be self-hosted by an individual or group, or operated as a managed service for others. Users exist at the top level of the domain, while data is strictly tenant-separated for each circle; ensuring privacy, autonomy, and scalability.
   
   This model allows a “circle operator” to support thriving networks of circles under one roof, where communities pay only for the resources they actually use. Hosting grows organically with activity, not through artificial engagement loops. Each circle becomes its own world - a craft collective, a neighbourhood forum, a group of friends - all connected through a shared ecosystem of independent instances.
2. Community Stewardship
   Just as villages pooled resources through tithes or shared reserves, participants of a circle can choose to contribute predictable support - small dues, pooled funds, or volunteered time. The platform never monetises attention; it survives on stewardship that directly funds hosting, moderation, and maintenance.
3. Skillshare as Currency
   In a village, value flows in skills as much as in goods. A carpenter mends a roof, a blacksmith repairs tools, a teacher shares knowledge. circles.diy brings this principle into the digital age. Members can offer not only funds, but skill - workshops, tutorials, mentoring, or creative collaborations - enriching every circle with practical, human value.

The common thread? Every revenue flow is anchored in real participation and creativity. Nothing comes from extracting attention. Everything comes from what members freely put back into the commons.

Utility over Engagement

The success of a social platform shouldn't be measured by engagement figures. circles.diy aims to be utility-first, tuned to quickly action social tasks without friction. No digging through layers of UI and cryptic menus - just quick, easy, highly-usable social tools to provide the best digital communication experience.

Circles.diy focuses on a core set of social actions that matter most. Creating a post, sharing an update, organising an event, joining a discussion, or starting a live call should feel instant and obvious. Every action exists to serve a clear purpose - to help people do things together, not simply scroll. Our design philosophy prioritises flow and clarity over spectacle, ensuring that each interaction strengthens connection and progress rather than extracting attention.

Sovereign Systems

We want circles.diy to embody the DIY ethos at its core: flexible enough that anyone can host their own space, yet accessible enough for those who simply want to join without software skills.

We envision two layers of participation:

• Managed Hosting (Quick Start): For communities who want their own circle but not the overhead, circles.diy offers hosted instances. Admins & owners still govern, we simply provide the scaffolding.
• DIY Mode (Self-Hosted Nodes): For hackers and builders, a simple deployment process gives full ownership of a circle. These nodes form the backbone of the network, embodying independence.

To make this work, circles.diy treats portability as sacred. A circle, its content, and its members can migrate between modes - self-hosted or managed - without loss. Protocol-level interoperability ensures circles aren't silos, but threads in a larger social fabric.

Open Borders

Creativity has no bounds, we know this and our users know this, so creating yet another private "walled-garden" social network only adds to the problem. circles.diy firmly believes that the right to your content is yours, where content lives should be up to the author.

This is why we are building a social platform with interoperability at its core, paying close attention to established and emerging social-networking protocols and ensuring users can not only distribute as much of their content as possible between compatible networks, but also have the ability to easily migrate their content to/from other platforms if they desire.

Why would we openly enable migration away from circles.diy? Because:

• We believe it solidifies our ethos against the destructive patterns of privitised social networks.
• We believe if you build a good enough platform that provides real value to users, they won't want to leave 🤷
• We believe in the power of high-quality communities to attract fellow creatives and we want to make joining a circle as easy as possible 😇