Friendica Hosting Live In 5 Minutes

Deploy Friendica hosting and run your own self-hosted Fediverse social network on a dedicated Cloud VPS. xCloud starts the pinned Friendica 2026.05 image with a private MariaDB database and a cron container, keeps the code, media and database on persistent volumes, creates the admin account with a generated password, closes public registration and serves the node over HTTPS on your domain.

Deploy your Friendica

No terminal
No technical skills needed
No lock-in, cancel anytime

What is Friendica?

Friendica is an open and free platform for decentralised social communication, linking to independent and corporate services across the Fediverse, a federated network of thousands of servers. You can interact with people on Mastodon, Lemmy, Diaspora, Misskey, PeerTube and Pixelfed, and control the privacy scope of your content. Run on your own server it is a self-hosted Friendica node, an alternative to a single-company network such as Facebook, under the AGPL.

On xCloud it is deployed as three containers: friendica 2026.05-apache, a cron container for federation and maintenance jobs, and a private MariaDB 11.8.3 database, with the images pinned by digest. The friendica_data, friendica_media and friendica_db volumes hold the state, and public registration starts closed, so you decide who joins.

From Sign-Up to a Live Friendica In Just 3 Easy Steps

A Friendica node normally means a web container, a database, a cron job for federation, three volumes, outbound email, a domain and a certificate before the first post. This is the same result without assembling any of it.

Step 01
Sign Up
Create your xCloud account and pick Friendica from the OneClick catalog. Enter the administrator email, a site title and the SMTP server details used for password resets and notifications, then choose your domain.
Step 02
We Deploy It For You
One click. We start friendica 2026.05-apache and a private mariadb 11.8.3, both pinned by digest, plus a cron container, mount friendica_data, friendica_media and friendica_db, create the admin, close registration and publish HTTPS.
Step 03
Sign In As Admin And Choose Who Joins
Sign in as admin with the generated password, change it in Settings, then set Administration, Site, Registration Policy to approval-required or open if you want members. A fresh install accepts no sign-ups.

Everything Friendica Does, On Your Own Server

Friendica 2026.05 runs here as a full node, with its code, media and database kept on volumes you own.

Decentralised Social Network
Friendica links to a federated network of thousands of servers called the Fediverse, so your members can interact with people on other servers.
Talks To Other Networks
Interact with people on Mastodon, Lemmy, Diaspora, Misskey, PeerTube and Pixelfed, and receive content from Tumblr, WordPress and RSS.
Control Who Sees A Post
Friendica lets you control the privacy scope of your content, so a post can go to everyone or only to the people you choose.
Cron Container For Federation
A separate cron container runs federation and maintenance jobs, so background delivery does not depend on visitors loading pages.
Registration Closed By Default
A post-install step closes registration before any account exists, so no stranger can register and claim administrator rights.
Media On A Volume
Uploaded files and filesystem media persist on the friendica_data and friendica_media volumes, apart from the MariaDB data.

Everything You Need To Run Your Social Node 24/7

Managed hosting for Friendica, so the parts that keep it online are not your problem.

Friendica 2026.05 deployed instantly
Images pinned by digest
Private MariaDB, not exposed
Registration closed on a fresh install
Free SSL certificate
Server backups and snapshots
Server security updates included
30+ server locations
Unused balance refunded

What You Can Do With Friendica

Run a decentralised social network for your community
Give a club, school or company its own Fediverse home with members of your choosing, while still reaching people on other Fediverse servers.
Post to chosen audiences only
Use Friendica's privacy scope to share a post with a selected group instead of the whole network, on a server whose data you control.
Bring other feeds into one timeline
Receive content from Tumblr, WordPress and RSS into your node, alongside the posts of the people you follow across the Fediverse.
Keep sign-ups under admin control
Leave registration closed for a private node, or switch the registration policy to approval-required or open when you want to admit members.

Friendica vs Alternatives

Facebook: A social network run by a single company; Friendica is a free platform in the Fediverse, and on xCloud the node, its media and its member data sit on your own server.
Mastodon: A Fediverse microblogging server, available as its own OneClick app; Friendica can interact with Mastodon users, and its README stresses control over the privacy scope of content.
Misskey: Another Fediverse server with its own OneClick template; Friendica also links to Misskey users through its federation protocols.
GoToSocial: A lightweight Fediverse server available as a OneClick app; Friendica is a fuller social-network platform with a database and a cron container.

Simple Pricing. Everything Included.

Dedicated Cloud VPS sizes, pre-configured for Friendica hosting. Pick the one that fits, and resize any time.

Cloud VPS 6 GB

Cloud VPS 16 GB

More members, media and federation traffic on the same server.

$59.99per month

16 GB RAM
6 vCPU cores
200 GB NVMe SSD
30 TB
Unlimited

Get started

Every size is a dedicated Cloud VPS we provision, patch, monitor and restore. Billed monthly with no lock-in — delete the server and the unused balance comes back to your account. Friendica itself is free software under the AGPL-3.0.

Docker hosting

Already Have a Server? Bring Your Own

Connect any VPS — DigitalOcean, Vultr, Linode, AWS, Hetzner or bare metal — and deploy Friendica on it through the same panel, for a per-server management fee instead of a Cloud VPS rental.

Free

Start your journey without cost.

$0forever

1 server
10 sites

Start free

Starter

Professional

The same platform, discounted at 6–10 servers.

$4per server / month

6–10 servers
Unlimited sites
All features included
Bring any VPS provider

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Agency

The same platform, discounted at 11+ servers.

$3per server / month

11+ servers
Unlimited sites
All features included
Bring any VPS provider

Get started

Priced per connected server, so your rate adjusts automatically as you add or remove servers. You pay your own provider for the server itself.

Self-managed hosting

Ready To Run Your Own Social Network?

Friendica on xCloud runs on a dedicated Cloud VPS that we provision, patch, monitor and restore. Deploy faster. Own your data. Stay in control.

Fast Provisioning
Deploy faster using an xCloud Managed Server built with optimized stacks and high-speed SSDs.
Enterprise-grade security
Protect your infrastructure with a free SSL certificate and more advanced security features at no additional cost.
Intuitive Control Panel
From Server creation to application deployment, everything can be managed from our intuitive control panel.

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Frequently Asked Questions

Feel free to contact us with any questions or concerns you may have.

Can I self-host Friendica with Docker?

Yes, and this template is Friendica Docker hosting without the compose file: the friendica 2026.05-apache image and a private MariaDB 11.8.3, both pinned by digest, a cron container and three named volumes. Friendica installs unattended; there is no web setup wizard to run.

What does Friendica need to run?

The template manifest asks for 2 CPU cores, 512 MB of RAM and 10 GB of disk. It runs the web container, the cron container and a private MariaDB, and the install form also needs SMTP server, port, username, password, sender domain and security settings.

Is Friendica free?

Yes. Friendica is open and free software under the AGPL-3.0, so there is no licence fee for any number of members. Your plan pays for the dedicated Cloud VPS underneath, and you provide your own SMTP account for account email.

Can Friendica talk to Mastodon?

Yes. Upstream says that through various protocols you can interact with people on Mastodon, Lemmy, Diaspora, Misskey, PeerTube and Pixelfed, as well as other Friendica servers. It can also receive content from Tumblr, WordPress and RSS.

Which protocols does Friendica support?

The template description lists ActivityPub and the Fediverse, Diaspora, Tumblr and Bluesky connections. Upstream's README speaks of various protocols linking to other servers. This page does not claim that every feature works with every network, or that each was tested.

Can I control who sees my Friendica posts?

Yes. Upstream says you can control the privacy scope of your content, so a post need not go to the whole network. Items you share still depend on the other server's own handling once they federate, so treat private groups with care.

How do I stop strangers registering on my Friendica server?

You do not need to: a post-install step sets registration to closed before any account exists, then creates the admin. To admit members, change Administration, Site, Registration Policy to approval-required or open. Later policy changes are never overwritten.

How do I back up Friendica?

Back up and restore all three volumes from the same point in time: friendica_data for code, configuration and themes, friendica_media for filesystem media, and friendica_db for MariaDB. Nothing schedules the backup for you. Restore all three together before starting the stack.

How do I upgrade Friendica?

Nothing upgrades itself: Friendica 2026.05 and MariaDB 11.8.3 are pinned by digest. Read the release notes and take a coordinated backup first, since Friendica applies database structure updates at startup and large databases can take significant time.

Can I change the domain later?

Not by editing the environment alone. FRIENDICA_URL is fixed to the public HTTPS domain at install, so moving the node needs a coordinated Friendica URL and configuration migration. Pick the domain you intend to keep, because federated servers know your node by it.

Is this a Friendica cloud service?

It gives you a Friendica cloud of your own, web, cron and MariaDB containers on a dedicated Cloud VPS. Outbound email depends on the SMTP provider you enter, and this page does not claim that delivery was exercised in QA.

Can I cancel anytime?

Yes. There is no lock-in — cancel any time. Hosting is billed monthly and charged for what you actually use, so when you delete the server the unused balance is refunded to your account, less up to 10% in payment-processing fees.