Openwrite — a minimalist, FOSS-first blogging platform with Gemini support (szmer.info)

submitted 2 weeks ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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Hey fellow FOSS folks!

For past few weeks I’ve been working on a passion project called Openwrite — a minimalist, open-source blogging platform focused on privacy, simplicity, and full user control. It’s built with Flask and released under the AGPL license. Inspired by platforms like WriteFreely, but with a few twists.

What it offers right now:

Multiple blogs per user (or single-blog mode, ideal for self-hosting)

SQLite & MySQL support

Image uploads (local or BunnyCDN)

Markdown editor with live preview

Custom blog themes (like a 6 now but I upload new regularly)

Custom CSS per blog

Gemini support – yes, gemini://openwrite.io works!

No tracking, hashed IPs only for basic stats

Dashboard with view statistics (OS, browser, timelines – all for free)

ActivityPub federation (Follow, Like)

RSS feeds, optional search engine indexing, and "Discover" section

Oh — and it supports importing posts from XML(wordpress) or CSV.

What makes it different?

I’m trying to build something:

FOSS-first (no paid plans, no analytics spyware, no nonsense)

Purely optional in hosting: you can run your own instance or use mine

Built for people like us — nerds, tinkerers, writers, privacy lovers

Current status

Still in 0.x versions (currently at 0.10.4), but stable and usable. I’d love early feedback, contributors, ideas, testers — anything really. First pull request will make me cry tears of joy.

GitHub: https://github.com/openwriteio/openwrite

Site: https://openwrite.io/

Gemini mirror: gemini://openwrite.io

Thanks for reading — feel free to ask questions, roast my CSS, or suggest features. Let’s keep the open web alive 💜

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[-] [email protected] 5 points 2 weeks ago

Looks interesting to me, as a (no-ads, no-tracking) Hugo blogger myself that has been considering trying Gemini too... at least if it means I would be able use it without having to configure Gemini by myself, as if I'm a privacy-aware user I'm also not really much of a geek ;)

May I ask why use the US Microsoft owned Github and not a more privacy respecting FLOSS alternative like, say, the German Codeberg?

[-] [email protected] -3 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago)

So basically a playground for those trying to get quick 10-30k followers using only AI and increased success rate due to ActivityPub support? Hmm sounds like a poison to me.

EDIT: actually I heard about the other Gemini thing but I didn't really know what exactly it is and how it's used so yea.

[-] [email protected] 14 points 2 weeks ago

No, no -- I think the author's project supports the gemini hypertext protocol, not google's "AI" monstrosity.

Once again, a rich megacorp chose a name ignoring the fact it was already taken.

[-] [email protected] 3 points 2 weeks ago

I think there are a lot of things with that name.

[-] [email protected] 10 points 2 weeks ago

I think he meant gemini the protocol not gemini the LLM

[-] [email protected] 9 points 2 weeks ago

gemini here is a protocol (gemini is modern gopher, which was an alternate to http)

this post was submitted on 08 Jul 2025

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