Cloudflare announces `` Wildebeest '', a compatible server for Twitter's rival Mastodon



Cloudflare has announced Wildebeest , an open-source, easy-to-deploy SNS protocol compatible server for ActivityPub and Mastodon built on its cloud.

Welcome to Wildebeest: the Fediverse on Cloudflare
https://blog.cloudflare.com/welcome-to-wildebeest-the-fediverse-on-cloudflare/

On February 9, 2023, Cloudflare announced Wildebeest , an open source ActivityPub and Mastodon compatible server that can be built on top of the supercloud.




Cloudflare explained that the reason for announcing Wildebeest was ``to be able to build a feediverse on Cloudflare,'' and specifically, to easily and easily build Mastodon's own server, which is known as a competing service of Twitter. The use case is to allow

To use Mastodon, you need to join an existing server or host your own server with its own rules. Cloudflare said the benefits of running its own servers are that 'we want to build new communities and attract other users with common themes and rules', 'we don't have to trust third-party servers or adhere to policies, You can create a personal account under the domain of your choice on your own server,' 'You can have complete control over your data, personal information, content, and visibility into what's happening on your instance.' is listed.

However, Cloudflare points out that it is 'very difficult' to build your own server according to the server implementation method provided by Mastodon gGmbH, the developer of Mastodon. He explains that it is 'extremely difficult' because it requires renting a server or VPS, installing software, setting up a database and web server, and building a network to protect it from attacks and abuse.

On the other hand, with Wildebeest it is possible to build a Mastodon compatible server on Cloudflare in just a few minutes. Cloudflare also explains that the point is that you don't have to worry about maintaining and protecting your servers from abuse and attacks.

Wildebeest is not a managed service , it is your instance data code running on the cloud in your Cloudflare account. In addition, it is also open source, so anyone can extend and improve it.

The Wildebeest source code is published in the following GitHub repository.

GitHub - cloudflare/wildebeest: Wildebeest is an ActivityPub and Mastodon-compatible server
https://github.com/cloudflare/wildebeest



The contents supported by Wildebeest at the time of article creation are as follows.

- ActivityPub , WebFinger , NodeInfo , WebPush and Mastodon compatible APIs. Wildebeest can also connect to and receive connections from other Fediverse servers.
- Compatible with most popular web (such as Pinafore ), desktop and mobile clients for Mastodon. It also provides a simple read-only web interface for searching timelines and user profiles.
・Posts can be published, edited, promoted, and deleted. Supports text, images and video (soon).
・Anyone can follow.
・Contents can be searched.
- You can register one or more accounts under an instance. Authentication can be an IdP compatible with Cloudflare Access, such as GitHub or Google, or email-based.
・Profile information, avatar, header image can be edited.

In addition, Cloudflare's John Graham-Cumming CTO has tweeted that he built his own Mastodon server using Wildebeest, and advertises that Cumming's CTO account is '@[email protected]'.




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in Software,   Web Service, Posted by logu_ii