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2026-04-01 20:59:31

silverpill@mitra.social

How Nomadic ActivityPub (FEP-ef61) compares to other protocols?

I made a table:

https://codeberg.org/ap-next/ap-next/src/branch/main/nomadpub.md#protocol-comparison

2026-04-02 10:40:59

Jupiter Rowland

jupiter_rowland@hub.netzgemeinde.eu

@silverpill Would be interesting to add Hubzilla's Zot6 and (streams)' Nomad (which would be Zot12 if it wasn't incompatible with Zot6) to the list.

By the way: Forte doesn't require a gateway to communicate with non-nomadic ActivityPub. A fully cloned Forte channel can communicate with a Mastodon account without jumping through hoops. Remember that Forte has almost fully-featured Hubzilla-level nomadic identity (i.e. everything except real-time syncing between channel instances; unlike Hubzilla and (streams) which do sync in real time, it needs a cronjob for that) directly built into its core.

(streams) does support nomadic identity via ActivityPub. But internally, it uses and relies upon Nomad for its nomadic identity. It only supports nomadic identity via ActivityPub a) because it was used as a development platform for just this and b) in order to be able to understand cloned nomadic ActivityPub actors elsewhere. This is also why it isn't possible to move from (streams) to Forte, to move from Forte to (streams) or to clone between (streams) and Forte.

(streams) itself doesn't require gateways to communicate with Mastodon & Co. either. It speaks three protocols natively: its own Nomad, Hubzilla's Zot6 and (optionally, but on by default) standard ActivityPub.

#Long #LongPost #CWLong #CWLongPost #FediMeta #FediverseMeta #CWFediMeta #CWFediverseMeta #ActivityPub #Zot #Zot6 #Nomad #Hubzilla #Streams #(streams) #Forte #NomadicIdentity

2026-04-02 22:30:01

silverpill

silverpill@mitra.social

@jupiter_rowland

Would be interesting to add Hubzilla's Zot6 and (streams)' Nomad (which would be Zot12 if it wasn't incompatible with Zot6) to the list.

I'll think about it. As far as I know, Zot identities are keys, all data is portable and private content is possible. I guess the main difference between Zot and FEP-ef61 would be in ActivityPub interop?

By the way: Forte doesn't require a gateway to communicate with non-nomadic ActivityPub.

No, from FEP-ef61 point of view, there's still a gateway, because Forte doesn't use canonical IDs. We can say that Forte is a client and a gateway combined in a single piece of software.

2026-04-02 22:50:13

Jupiter Rowland

jupiter_rowland@hub.netzgemeinde.eu

@silverpill

As far as I know, Zot identities are keys, all data is portable and private content is possible.

I'm not sure about Zot identites. But all data is portable because it's basically containerised in the only implementations, and it's the whole container that's being moved or cloned. And private content is made possible by means of permissions.

That said, it could be a question of implementation. Just about everything that Hubzilla does with Zot6 and that (streams) does with Nomad, Forte does with nothing but ActivityPub.

I guess the main difference between Zot and FEP-ef61 would be in ActivityPub interop?

Yes because there isn't really any between Zot/Nomad and any form of ActivityPub. There only appears to be interoperability because Hubzilla and (streams) can send their contents via multiple protocols at the same time.

I'm not even sure whether Hubzilla or (streams) users who have ActivityPub off and ActivityPub users can see each other's comments in a conversation that originated on Hubzilla or (streams). AFAIK, diaspora* users actually cannot see ActivityPub comments and vice versa in Hubzilla conversations.

This also means that the only way of "forwarding" non-ActivityPub content to ActivityPub users and vice versa via Hubzilla or (streams) is by sharing (= quote-posting) it. In fact, for the longest time, this was Hubzilla's only way of forwarding content. It has only been able to repeat (= boost) content for a few years, and I guess not everyone on Hubzilla is aware of the limitations of repeating when your contacts are all over the place.

#Long #LongPost #CWLong #CWLongPost #FediMeta #FediverseMeta #CWFediMeta #CWFediverseMeta #ActivityPub #Zot #Zot6 #Nomad #Hubzilla #Streams #(streams) #Forte

2026-04-02 14:19:20

jandi

jandi@mastodon.social

@silverpill (added @jupiter_rowland)

Very interesting, thanks for the link!

I've recently started testing Holos, do you know about it? It seems to me (not a dev) that there are similarities, I hope you don't mind me tagging @HolosSocial to ask if there's something common to any of the listed projects and FEPs with Holos.

https://holos.social/how-it-works

Perhaps it merits a mention in the comparison table?

Thanks to all involved, nomadic/portable fediverse identities is a very exciting prospect.

2026-04-20 02:56:53

ValorZard

valorzard@mastodon.gamedev.place

@silverpill im really excited for this to finally get standarized!
one question though -> do you know if mastodon as an organization would be willing to implement this once its more stabilized? My stuff is on mastodon and I'm not super willing to move everything over to somewhere else.