Welcome, steward

Acorn is community software for building a space on the internet that your community truly owns. Many of our online communities live on space we rent from Big Tech, which also makes them subject to Big Tech's rules, moderation, algorithms, and data extraction.

Acorn is how you build and run an online community you truly control.

The promise of Acorn is that every community gets a social media network built for them, while still connecting you to the wider social web. You can create feeds and control whose posts show up in those feeds. You can set the moderation rules for your community without having to negotiate with Instagram's trust and safety representatives if you post something they don't like. You get a social media site styled with your colors, themes, and brands. And most importantly, you get control over your presence on this site. At any point if you don't like Acorn, you and your community can leave and host your data elsewhere while keeping your profiles, posts, and relationships.

These guides walk you through running that community in plain language. You don't need to be technical, and you don't need to understand the machinery underneath — Acorn handles that. You just need to know what you want your community to be.

Start here