Dreamwidth Studios

Dreamwidth Studios

Dreamwidth Studios is a free and open source blogging and social networking platform. It allows users to maintain blogs, journals, and communities with features like custom themes, granular privacy controls,threaded comments, and integrated media embedding.
Dreamwidth Studios image
blogging social-networking open-source privacy-controls media-embedding

Dreamwidth Studios: Free & Open Source Blogging Platform

A free and open source blogging and social networking platform with features like custom themes, granular privacy controls, threaded comments, and integrated media embedding.

What is Dreamwidth Studios?

Dreamwidth Studios is a free and open source weblog platform and social networking site. It was created by a group of former LiveJournal developers and volunteers in 2008 after issues arose with LiveJournal's new owner.

Dreamwidth offers users the ability to maintain a blog, journal, or social networking profile. It comes packed with features that allow a high degree of customization and privacy control. Users can create custom CSS themes to personalize the look and feel of their site. The platform also provides intuitive tools for embedding media like photos, audio, and video.

Some key features and capabilities of Dreamwidth Studios include:

  • Open source codebase with an emphasis on features for diversity and marginalized groups.
  • Granular privacy controls allow users to limit access to posts by friend group or make content fully public.
  • Nested commenting structure facilitates threaded discussions attached to posts.
  • Supports multimedia embedding for images, GIFs, audio, and video.
  • Real-time activity streams and notifications when you are @ mentioned or receive replies.
  • Site skins and themes allow deep customization and personalization.

With its focus on privacy, customization, and conversation, Dreamwidth provides a compelling platform for keeping blogs and participating in communities. The site sees usage from hobbyist bloggers, writers, fan communities, and other niche interest groups despite its relatively small user base compared to platforms like WordPress or Tumblr.

Dreamwidth Studios Features

Features

  1. Open source blogging and social networking platform
  2. Customizable themes
  3. Granular privacy controls
  4. Threaded comments
  5. Media embedding
  6. Groups and communities

Pricing

  • Open Source
  • Free

Pros

Free and open source

Highly customizable

Strong privacy controls

Active developer community

Cons

Smaller user base than other platforms

Less beginner friendly than more mainstream options

Limited native mobile apps


The Best Dreamwidth Studios Alternatives

Top Social & Communications and Blogging & Social Networking and other similar apps like Dreamwidth Studios


Medium icon

Medium

Medium is an online publishing platform developed by Evan Williams and launched in 2012. It allows users to publish their own stories, articles, and essays on a variety of topics. Medium is designed for ease of reading, with clean formatting and typography.Some key features of Medium include:Users can publish their...
Medium image
WordPress icon

WordPress

WordPress is an open-source content management system (CMS) based on PHP and MySQL. First released in 2003 by developers Matt Mullenweg and Mike Little, WordPress has grown to become the most popular CMS in the world and powers over 30% of all websites.Some key things to know about WordPress:It is...
WordPress image
Blogger icon

Blogger

Blogger is a popular free blog publishing service run by Google. It allows anyone to easily create and manage a blog for free without needing to know any coding. Blogger has an easy-to-use WYSIWYG editor interface that allows users to create blog posts containing text, images, videos, links, and more.Some...
Blogger image
Tumblr icon

Tumblr

Tumblr is a microblogging and social networking website and application that was created in 2007. It allows users to post multimedia and other content to a short-form blog. Users can follow other users' tumblelogs, as well as like and reblog posts.Some key features of Tumblr include:Tumblelogs - short-form blogs that...
Tumblr image
LiveJournal icon

LiveJournal

LiveJournal is an online journaling platform and social networking website where users can keep a blog, journal or diary. LiveJournal pioneered the concept of online journaling when it launched in 1999 and paved the way for future blogging platforms.On LiveJournal, users create accounts where they can post entries into their...
LiveJournal image
ZeroBlog icon

ZeroBlog

ZeroBlog is an open-source, self-hosted blogging platform designed with simplicity in mind. Unlike more complex platforms like WordPress, ZeroBlog aims to provide a clean, ad-free blogging experience without overwhelming users with endless options and settings.At its core, ZeroBlog is focused purely on facilitating the writing and organizing of blog content....
ZeroBlog image
Vivaldi Community icon

Vivaldi Community

Vivaldi Community is a relatively new community-driven web browser focused on customization and privacy. It is based on open web technologies like Chromium, similar to browsers like Google Chrome and Microsoft Edge. Vivaldi Technologies develops it with input from its user community.Some key features of Vivaldi Community include:Tab Stacking -...
Vivaldi Community image
DEV Community icon

DEV Community

DEV Community is a free and open source software development community platform launched in 2019. It allows software developers and programmers to publish technical articles, take part in discussions, ask questions, and generally connect with other developers.Some key features of DEV Community include:Article publishing - Developers can publish articles on...
DEV Community image
Scribe.rip icon

Scribe.rip

Scribe.rip is a free web-based transcription service that utilizes artificial intelligence to transcribe audio and video files. It allows users to easily upload media files such as MP3, WAV, MP4, and more to automatically generate text transcripts.One of the main benefits of Scribe.rip is that it is completely free to...
Scribe.rip image
Hubzilla icon

Hubzilla

Hubzilla is an open-source, decentralized social networking and communications platform built on a foundation of web server software called Elgg. Unlike traditional social networks like Facebook or Twitter that store user data on centralized servers controlled by a single company, Hubzilla allows users to have ownership and control over their...
Hubzilla image
Osada icon

Osada

Osada is an open-source and cross-platform project management application. It provides similar core functionality as Microsoft Project, allowing users to plan, schedule, and track projects.Key features of Osada include:Creating projects and defining tasks, milestones, and dependencies between tasksAssigning resources such as people and equipment to tasksBuilding project schedules with start/finish...
Osada image
Imzy icon

Imzy

Imzy was a social networking website that launched in 2016 with the goal of building communities around shared interests and passions. It was founded by former Reddit employees Dan McComas and Jessica Moreno who sought to create an alternative to Reddit that was more community-focused.On Imzy, users could create or...
Yahoo! Groups icon

Yahoo! Groups

Yahoo! Groups is a free online platform that enables group communication, collaboration and organization. It has been around since 2001, allowing people to have ongoing conversations within a group format, share ideas, photos, files, links, calendars, databases and more.Some key features of Yahoo! Groups include:Group email lists - Have conversations...
Yahoo! Groups image