WriteFreely is a beautifully pared-down blogging platform that's simple on the surface, yet powerful underneath.
WriteFreely is free and open source software for building **a writing space** on the web — whether a publication, internal blog, or writing community in the fediverse.
It's designed to be flexible and share your writing widely, so it's built around plain text and can publish to the _fediverse_ via ActivityPub. It's easy to install and light enough to run on a Raspberry Pi.
* Publish drafts and let others proofread them by sharing a private link
* Create multiple lightweight blogs under a single account
* Export all data in plain text files
* Read a stream of other posts in your writing community
* Build more advanced apps and extensions with the [well-documented API](https://developers.write.as/docs/api/)
* Designed around user privacy and consent
### Made for writing
## Hosting
Built on a plain, auto-saving editor, WriteFreely gives you a distraction-free writing environment. Once published, your words are front and center, and easy to read.
We offer two kinds of hosting services that make WriteFreely deployment painless: [Write.as Pro](https://write.as/pro) for individuals, and [Write.as for Teams](https://write.as/for/teams) for businesses. Besides saving you time and effort, both services directly fund WriteFreely development and ensure the long-term sustainability of our open source work.
Start writing together, publicly or privately. Connect with other communities, whether running WriteFreely, [Plume](https://joinplu.me/), or other ActivityPub-powered software. And bring members on board from your existing platforms, thanks to our OAuth 2.0 support.
Start a personal blog on [Write.as](https://write.as), our flagship instance. Built to eliminate setup friction and preserve your privacy, Write.as helps you start a blog in seconds. It supports custom domains (with SSL) and multiple blogs / pen names per account. [Read more here](https://write.as/pro).
### Intuitive organization
### [](https://write.as/for/teams)
Categorize articles [with hashtags](https://writefreely.org/docs/latest/writer/hashtags), and create static pages from normal posts by [_pinning_ them](https://writefreely.org/docs/latest/writer/static) to your blog. Create draft posts and publish to multiple blogs from one account.
[Write.as for Teams](https://write.as/for/teams) gives your organization, business, or [open source project](https://write.as/for/open-source) a clutter-free space to share updates or proposals and build your collective knowledge. We take care of hosting, upgrades, backups, and maintenance so your team can focus on writing.
### International
## Quick start
Blog elements are localized in 20+ languages, and WriteFreely includes first-class support for non-Latin and right-to-left (RTL) script languages.
WriteFreely has minimal requirements to get up and running — you only need to be able to run an executable.
### Private by default
> **Note** this is currently alpha software. We're quickly moving out of this v0.x stage, but while we're in it, there are no guarantees that this is ready for production use.
WriteFreely collects minimal data, and never publicizes more than a writer consents to. Writers can seamlessly create multiple blogs from a single account for different pen names or purposes without publicly revealing their association.
To get started, head over to our [Getting Started guide](https://writefreely.org/start). For production use, jump to the [Running in Production](https://writefreely.org/start#production) section.
The quickest way to deploy WriteFreely is with [Write.as](https://write.as/writefreely), a hosted service from the team behind WriteFreely. You'll get fully-managed installation, backup, upgrades, and maintenance — and directly fund our free software work ❤️
WriteFreely is available in these package repositories:
[**Learn more on Write.as**](https://write.as/writefreely).
## Quick start
WriteFreely deploys as a static binary on any platform and architecture that Go supports. Just use our built-in SQLite support, or add a MySQL database, and you'll be up and running!
For common platforms, start with our [pre-built binaries](https://github.com/writeas/writefreely/releases/) and head over to our [installation guide](https://writefreely.org/start) to get started.
### Packages
You can also find WriteFreely in these package repositories, thanks to our wonderful community!
* [Arch User Repository](https://aur.archlinux.org/packages/writefreely/)
## Documentation
Read our full [documentation on WriteFreely.org](https://writefreely.org/docs). Help us improve by contributing to the [writefreely/documentation](https://github.com/writefreely/documentation) repo.
Read our full [documentation on WriteFreely.org](https://writefreely.org/docs)—️ and help us improve by contributing to the [writefreely/documentation](https://github.com/writefreely/documentation) repo.
## Development
Ready to hack on your site? Get started with our [developer guide](https://writefreely.org/docs/latest/developer/setup).
## Docker
Read about using Docker in the [documentation](https://writefreely.org/docs/latest/admin/docker).
Start hacking on WriteFreely with our [developer setup guide](https://writefreely.org/docs/latest/developer/setup). For Docker support, see our [Docker guide](https://writefreely.org/docs/latest/admin/docker).
Matt Baer
5 years ago