circles.diy

A social platform built around your circles, not your profile.

circles.diy inverts the logic of conventional social media. Instead of centering the individual - turning you into a broadcaster performing for an algorithm - we center the group. Your circles are your home base: the friends planning adventures together, the creative collective sharing work, the neighbourhood organising local initiatives, the study group coordinating research.

Mainstream platforms have twisted creativity and community into raw material for profit, optimising for attention extraction and algorithmic control. We're building something different: digital spaces designed for real social dynamics, where groups coordinate seamlessly, share resources openly, and connect naturally within common interests - all without hidden influence or data exploitation.

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

What does "circles-first" actually mean?

Think about how you actually use social tools in real life. You don't broadcast to everyone you've ever met. You coordinate with specific groups: your project team, your book club, your sports crew, your family group chat, your volunteer collective. Each circle has its own context, its own inside jokes, its own way of getting things done.

circles.diy makes this natural structure explicit:

• Groups, not profiles, are primary. When you open circles.diy, you see your circles—not a feed of individuals competing for attention. Your identity adapts contextually: you might be a co-organiser in one circle, a learner in another, a coordinator in a third.
• Circles exist within common domains. Multiple friend groups might all attend the same conference, be part of the same local community, or share interest in the same craft. Domains are shared spaces where circles can discover each other, pool resources, and coordinate—without collapsing into one undifferentiated mass.
• Coordination over content. The platform prioritises helping groups do things together: organise events, split costs, share knowledge, make decisions. Posts and updates serve coordination, not engagement metrics.

Built for Organisers and Community Stewards

If you run events, manage communities, coordinate projects, or bring people together, you know the friction: scattered tools, opaque cost structures, information buried in endless message threads. circles.diy is designed with you in mind.

We're building integrated tools for:

• Fair compensation structures. Transparent payment systems, revenue breakdowns, and built-in tools to ensure contributors get compensated fairly - not as an afterthought, but as core infrastructure.
• Circle-aware coordination. Groups can plan attendance, contribute together, and split costs without leaving the platform. No more "who's handling this?" threads across five apps.
• Information flow that respects boundaries. Announce to a whole domain (e.g., "local makers network" or "sustainability collective") without needing access to private circle conversations. Reach people through their groups, not by surveilling their feeds.

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

The critical flaws of conventional platforms are well known. We've dared to propose an alternative approach, grounded in principles that actually serve communities:

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 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 time spent scrolling. circles.diy is designed as a tool, not a trap - it helps you coordinate with your circles, then gets out of the way so you can live your life.

This means:

• Clear "done states." When you've seen what's relevant to your circles, the app tells you. No infinite scroll, no "one more refresh."
• Action-oriented notifications. "Alex needs help with the project" matters. "Alex posted a photo" doesn't interrupt your day unless Alex is in a circle where you've opted in for updates.
• Minimal attention footprint. We know people value time away from screens. circles.diy respects this - quick coordination, efficient communication, then put your phone away and focus on what matters.

Every feature is tuned for utility-first design: creating posts, organising events, splitting costs, sharing resources, starting calls - all feel instant and obvious. Each interaction exists to help people do things together, not simply consume content.

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 and 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 and 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 privatised 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 😇