Haven Alternatives

haven reviews and mentions

• Slow Social Media
  3 projects | news.ycombinator.com | 16 Sep 2025

  Um, I'm building this? [1]

  The one key element I added was privacy. If your posts are private to your social group then there is no mechanism to try appealing to a broader "viral" audience. Also--if it is decentralized then the company (or person in my case) building it can't change their mind and start selling your data/eyeballs.

  I have a LOT of thoughts in this space. Lots of people think they want some sort of healthier social-media alternative, but we're fighting against systems that are so finely tuned engagement monsters that is hard compete to protect your attention and time.

  Herman- I'll reach out to you by email!

  [1]: https://havenweb.org

• Haven: Self-host a private blog instead of using Facebook
  1 project | news.ycombinator.com | 5 Sep 2025
• Show HN: Haven – Selfhost a private blog instead of using Facebook
  1 project | news.ycombinator.com | 31 Jul 2025
• Ask HN: What are you working on? (April 2025)
  134 projects | news.ycombinator.com | 27 Apr 2025

  (open source) Self-hostable, private social media alternative (like Facebook circa 2012). Functionally it is a private blog that speaks RSS with a built-in RSS aggregator. Self-hosting being the only way to actually have privacy in a social-media-type space.

  https://github.com/havenweb/haven

• Facebook's Little Red Book PDF Download
  3 projects | news.ycombinator.com | 2 Dec 2024

  It's funny; as I've been working on Haven[1], one of my guiding lights is what Facebook _could have been_[2]. To that end the opening section is really inspiring. This is describing a world where digital tools enhance your friendships. I think that's still possible and still a worthwhile goal--I just don't think it can be done by an entity with a corporate incentive structure. Those incentives will always tend towards enshittification[3].

  [1]: https://havenweb.org

  [2]: https://havenweb.org/2022/11/02/facebook-lie.html

  [3]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enshittification#

• 1M Users
  3 projects | news.ycombinator.com | 2 Sep 2024

  I've got to chime in here, because of how much this overlaps with the project I've been working on called Haven[1].

  A lot of these problems go away with a decentralized/open-source private model. If your posts aren't public then there is no spam. If everyone runs their own node of open-source (or better yet: open-protocol) software, then there is no centralized entity able to have incentives of profiting off the platform.

  Information propagation speed is a good call-out as dangerous. Even with all the spam/shilling/trills removed, it still leads to the girl who's having a great time on her snowboarding trip until she posts pictures on Instagram and drops into a foul mood because not enough people immediately liked her posts.

  I'd love to connect and share thoughts, feel free to reach out[2]/

  [1]: https://github.com/havenweb/haven

  [2]: https://havenweb.org/contact.html

• Facebook Banned Me for Life Because I Help People Use It Less (2021)
  3 projects | news.ycombinator.com | 25 Aug 2024

  I've been working on Haven[1] as an open-source self-hostable alternative to give control back to people. I actually wrote a blog post about how the move from "see what your friends/family are doing" to "just keep scrolling" was a pretty blatant bait-and-switch[2]. I think any alternative will fail in the same ways as Facebook has unless there are different incentives. I'm hoping that by making Haven open source and decentralized there won't be a path for me to make money off of it (beyond maybe hosting fees?) if it gets broader adoption.

  [1]: https://havenweb.org

  [2]: https://havenweb.org/2022/11/02/facebook-lie.html

• You don't have to be a "content creator" to have a website
  1 project | news.ycombinator.com | 14 Mar 2024

  I'm kinda split between "everyone should be blogging" and "I don't want what I say today to be archive.org'd and used to embarrass me 5/10/20 years down the line."

  I've been exploring Haven (https://havenweb.org) and the idea of an invite-only blog is appealing. Keep your crawlers off my writing, please.

• The quiet death of Ello's big dreams
  1 project | news.ycombinator.com | 18 Jan 2024

  I started building an open source private blogging system[1] when my first kid was born, and it eventually evolved into the skeleton of a social network--but fully decentralized using RSS and self- (or paid-) hosting. I concluded the only way for a network to actually avoid selling out was for there to be nothing to sell. If I give away the software, and don't control the network then there is no need for users to trust me. It continues to be an interesting journey as a side-project (not raising money means I'm still working a day-job).

  [1]: https://havenweb.org

• RSS Readers That You Can Self Host
  9 projects | news.ycombinator.com | 23 Dec 2022

  Can I plug Haven: https://github.com/havenweb/haven here too?

  It is a solid RSS reader, while also letting you publish privately. The plan is for this to expand into a social reader[1] soon!

  [1]: https://indieweb.org/social_reader

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