Social software should be yours
Synapse is MIT licensed from the client through the protocol to the node. Read it, build on it, run it, or fork it — none of those require asking us first.
- MIT
- licensed, every repository
- 5
- first-party clients
- 1
- protocol they all speak
- 0
- ads, trackers or seat limits
Run a node on hardware you already own
Three commands to a node with TLS, its own domain and a first space. Clients point at it by typing the address.
# Clone$ git clone https://github.com/synapse/synapse.git# Run$ docker compose up -d# Bootstrap$ synapse init --domain social.example.comA single small VPS is enough for a few hundred active members. The only external dependency is Postgres; media can live on any S3-compatible bucket.
Releases are pinned by version tag, so updating a node is a deliberate act rather than something that happens to it overnight.
A self-hosted node still federates — your community keeps talking to the wider network.
Open in the places that matter
Open source is only useful if the layers you actually touch are readable and changeable.
The whole stack, not a client
Clients, server, federation handshake and the three SDKs live under the same license. Nothing you depend on is a closed binary.
Readable end to end
A message can be traced from the keystroke in a client, through the wire format, to the row on the node — which is how bug reports get solved with a version number instead of a guess.
Yours to run
One container, one Postgres database, one TLS certificate. A node is a deployment, not a product you have to buy.
Encryption is part of the code
End-to-end encrypted DMs are the default path in the protocol, not an option a hosted operator can quietly turn off.
Where the work happens
No private roadmap. Issues, RFCs and release notes are the plan.
Start with an issue
Reproducible bugs get a trace and a version. Good-first-issues are labelled on every repository, including the SDKs.
Browse issuesProtocol changes go through an RFC
Anything that touches the wire format needs a short written proposal and a review window, so a change cannot silently break an old client.
Read the discussionsSelf-host and tell us where it hurt
Deployments on odd hardware are how the node gets better. Setup friction is treated as a bug and fixed in the next release.
Email support@synapse.appFork it, run it, or just use it
Five clients, one protocol, MIT licensed. Whatever you pick, the source is the same source.