dComms provides an orchestration and deployment platform for creating community-orientated communications services, such as messaging and social networking. Currently, the dComms deployment offers several fediverse solutions, including the Matrix/Element chat platform and the Mastodon blogging service. Additional services include offline-first applications, the secure Delta Chat messaging platform and the decentralized Ceno browser.
Self-hosted networking solutions offer an alternative to cloud-based platforms. They are in essence the anti-cloud option, resilient to global internet outages and functional within a shutdown network environment. When self-hosted services support federated communications they create a social network — the fediverse — independent from any one company or provider. The fediverse can be as small or large as the community of servers and users contributing to it. eQualitie’s dComms initiative provides an easy way for new communities to set-up and manage their own deployments.
dComms was created in early 2022, in response to the risks of global Internet outages posed by Russian aggression in Ukraine. It was deployed to nine regions and continues to service thousands of daily users.
The code is maintained in our open source Github repository at https://github.com/equalitie/dcomms-docker-swarm
