Inkwell
A federated social journaling platform — LiveJournal meets MySpace, reimagined for 2026 with ActivityPub federation. No algorithms, no ads, user-owned spaces.
Live instance: inkwell.social
Features
Writing & Publishing
- Rich text editor (TipTap) with 17+ extensions — formatting, tables, task lists, image uploads, smart typography
- Drafts, excerpts, cover images, word count & reading time
- Series & collections for organizing entries
- 21 content categories, tags, mood & music metadata
- Distraction-free writing mode
- Post by Email (Plus) — publish by sending to a unique email address
- Cross-posting to Mastodon/fediverse accounts
Social & Discovery
- Pen Pals (follow/accept) with pending state
- Stamps — 7 postage-stamp-styled reaction types per entry
- Inks — community discovery signal with trending & "Most Inked" sorting
- Threaded comments ("Marginalia") with @mentions
- Guestbooks on profile pages
- Circles — group discussion spaces with a Writer's Salon aesthetic
- Native polling (entry polls & platform-wide community polls)
- Direct messaging ("Letters") with rich text
- User blocking with full visibility enforcement
Profile Customization (MySpace-style)
- 8 theme presets, 8 fonts, 4 layouts, 3 color pickers
- Background images, banner images, profile music player
- Avatar frames (10 decorative SVG overlays)
- Avatar builder (DiceBear Croodles hand-drawn doodle style)
- Widget ordering, custom CSS, custom HTML (full-page mode with template tags)
- AIM-style status messages, social links, tag cloud
- 3 entry display modes (cards, full post, timeline)
Federation (ActivityPub)
- Fully interoperable with Mastodon and the fediverse
- Users followable at
@[email protected]
- Entries federated as
Article objects (FEP-b2b8)
- Inbound/outbound: follows, comments, inks (boosts), stamps (likes)
- Relay support for bootstrapping fediverse content on Explore
- WebFinger, HTTP Signatures, actor endpoints
Newsletters
- Double opt-in email subscribers (CAN-SPAM/GDPR compliant)
- Send published entries as emails with one-click unsubscribe
- Scheduled sends (Plus), custom newsletter name & reply-to
Monetization & Support
- Plus subscription ($5/mo) via Stripe
- Ink Donor voluntary donations ($1/$2/$3/mo)
- Postage — reader-to-writer payments via Stripe Connect (8% commission)
- Writer Subscription Plans — recurring paid content access
- External support links (Ko-fi, BMC, Patreon, etc.)
Platform
- Community feedback board & roadmap at
/roadmap
- Content translation (DeepL, 15 languages)
- Sensitive content labeling & reporting system
- Redactions (keyword-based content muting)
- Custom domains (Plus)
- Public API with
ink_-prefixed API keys
- Full-text search (Meilisearch with Postgres fallback)
- Self-hosting support via Docker Compose
Architecture
- Backend: Elixir/Phoenix 1.8 — OTP release deployed to Fly.io
- Frontend: Next.js 16 + React — standalone output deployed to Fly.io
- Federation: ActivityPub handled natively in Phoenix (no sidecar)
- Database: PostgreSQL 16
- Search: Meilisearch (optional, graceful fallback to Postgres ILIKE)
- Email: SMTP via
gen_smtp or Resend API (transactional + newsletters)
- Background Jobs: Oban (Postgres-backed)
- Payments: Stripe (subscriptions, Connect, donations)
Project Structure
inkwell/
apps/
api/ # Elixir/Phoenix backend (mix project)
web/ # Next.js frontend (npm workspace member)
services/
federation/ # Unused — federation is native in Phoenix
packages/
types/ # Shared TypeScript types (npm workspace member)
npm workspaces monorepo. Lock file lives at root, not in individual apps.
Getting Started
Prerequisites
- Elixir 1.19+ / Erlang/OTP 28+ (install via
brew install elixir on macOS)
- Node.js 20+
- Docker Desktop (for PostgreSQL and Meilisearch)
First-Time Setup
# 1. Start Docker services (Postgres + Meilisearch)
docker compose up -d
# 2. Install JS dependencies
npm install
# 3. Install Elixir deps, create DB, run migrations
cd apps/api && mix setup
# 4. Start Phoenix API (Terminal 1)
mix phx.server
# Wait for: Running InkwellWeb.Endpoint at 0.0.0.0:4000
# 5. Start Next.js frontend (Terminal 2, from project root)
npm run dev:web
# Wait for: Ready in ...ms
Development URLs
Logging In Locally
No email service is needed for local development. The API runs in "dev mode" — after entering any email on the login/signup page, a clickable magic link appears on screen instead of being emailed.
If mix compile Fails
On first compile with Elixir 1.19, you may hit a one-time ordering issue:
mix deps.compile oban --force
mix compile
Self-Hosting
Inkwell runs on any x86-64 server with Docker Compose, on one domain of your own, with every feature on for everyone and no billing. Three settings to start (DOMAIN, ADMIN_EMAIL, SECRET_KEY_BASE); Caddy handles HTTPS; members are followable as @name@yourdomain.
See SELF_HOSTING.md for the guide: install, email, your own Terms and Privacy Policy, backups, upgrades and troubleshooting.
Images are published to GitHub Container Registry on every push to main, tagged with the commit. :latest moves only after that commit's images have booted the self-hosted setup and passed scripts/selfhost-smoke.sh:
ghcr.io/stantondev/inkwell-api:latestghcr.io/stantondev/inkwell-web:latest
Deployment (Fly.io)
The hosted instance runs on Fly.io. Deploy commands:
# API (runs migrations automatically)
fly deploy --config fly.api.toml --wait-timeout 600
# Frontend
fly deploy --config fly.web.toml --wait-timeout 600
# Meilisearch
fly deploy --config fly.search.toml --wait-timeout 600
CI/CD via GitHub Actions (.github/workflows/docker-publish.yml) builds Docker images on every push to main, runs the self-hosting smoke test against them, then tags them latest.
License
GNU Affero General Public License v3.0
