Mobilizon facts for kids
The official banner for Mobilizon
|
|
| Stable release |
5.1.0
 / 7 December 2024 |
|---|---|
| Written in | Elixir, Vue.js |
| Available in | English, French |
| Type | Event Planning |
| License | AGPL v3+ |
Mobilizon is a free and open source software used to plan events and manage groups online. It was created by a French non-profit group called Framasoft and launched in October 2020.
The goal of Mobilizon is to give people a free and private way to organize get-togethers. It's an alternative to big company platforms like Facebook Events, Meetup.com, or EventBrite. It quickly became popular with tech fans and is now used by many different groups across Europe.
Contents
What Can You Do With Mobilizon?
Mobilizon is designed to make organizing simple and safe. When it first launched, it already had many useful features.
Creating and Managing Events
- Sign up easily: You can create an account with just an email address and a password.
- Use different identities: You can create more than one profile with a single account. This is great if you want to separate your personal life from a club or group you run.
- Plan your events: You can create, edit, and delete events. You can also save them as drafts to work on later.
- Control who attends: You can choose to approve or deny requests from people who want to join your event.
- Share your event: It's easy to share a link to your event on social media or by email. You can also add the event to your personal calendar.
Joining and Staying Safe
- Sign up for events: You can join an event using any of your profiles.
- Report problems: If you see content that breaks the rules, you can report it to the people who run the website (called moderators). This helps keep the community safe for everyone.
Some Mobilizon websites are set up for specific communities. For example, one in Switzerland supports five different languages to help people from different backgrounds connect.
The Story of Mobilizon
The idea for Mobilizon came from Framasoft, a group that teaches people about digital technology and supports free software.
Getting Started with Crowdfunding
On May 14, 2019, Framasoft started a crowdfunding campaign to raise money for the project. This was a way to see if people were interested in a new event platform. The campaign was a big success! By the time it ended on July 10, 2019, they had raised over €58,000.
Testing and Launching
A test version of the website went live on October 15, 2019. This allowed supporters to try it out and give their feedback. After more work and testing, the official first version of Mobilizon was launched on October 27, 2020.
By early 2025, there were 79 different Mobilizon websites, known as "instances," all over the world. Together, they hosted thousands of groups that had created over 375,000 events.
How Does Mobilizon Work Under the Hood?
Mobilizon is built with modern and efficient programming tools.
The Building Blocks
The main software is written in a programming language called Elixir. It uses a tool called Phoenix, which helps make the software fast and reliable. The part of the website that you see and interact with is built using a framework called VueJS.
A Federated Network
Mobilizon is not one giant website. Instead, it is made up of many smaller, independent websites called instances. These instances can all connect and share information with each other. This is possible because they use a special communication rule called the ActivityPub protocol.
This system is part of a larger network called the Fediverse. Because Mobilizon uses ActivityPub, it can also interact with other social media platforms in the Fediverse, like Mastodon and Pleroma. This means you could see an event from Mobilizon appear on your Mastodon timeline.
See also
- Mastodon – A social network similar to Twitter that is part of the Fediverse
- PeerTube – A video-sharing platform that uses ActivityPub
- Pixelfed – An image-sharing platform similar to Instagram
- Framasoft – The non-profit group that created Mobilizon
- Fediverse – The network of connected services that Mobilizon belongs to
