Hi! We're pub.solar
We are a global community, with a registered association seated in Cologne, Germany as our legal entity. Our goal is to enable more people to use free software, have secure digital communications, and to take control over their private data.
We host free software for you and all the people you love. We do this transparently and democratically.
We currently offer these services:
- Matrix: a decentralized, end-to-end encrypted chat, similar to Slack or Discord,
- Mastodon: a decentralized microblogging platform, similar to Twitter,
- Nextcloud: a cloud with office capabilities, similar to the Google Suite and Microsoft Office 365,
- Forgejo: a git server, comparable to GitHub or Gitlab,
Additionally, the following services which might change or dissappear any time.
- Searx: a metasearch engine, similar to Google or Bing,
- Mailman: a software for mailing lists,
- OBS Portal: a server for saving OpenBikeSensor data which is currently limited to the Cologne/Bonn region,
For some of these Services, you'll need to register an account, which we call a pub.solar ID. All services are publicly open for registration. Nextcloud accounts are severely limited in their storage amount. If you want more storage, please contact the crew.
Contact and getting help
You can reach us via #General in Matrix and @crew on Mastodon, or send a mail to crew@pub.solar.
You can find our PGP key here. It has the following fingerprint:
8A89 87AD E373 6C8C A2EB 315A 9B80 9EBB DD62 BAE3
Check out our wiki or contact us via one of the methods above. In the Matrix #General room there's always someone around for answering your questions.
Being a member or helping hand
Are you interested in becoming a member of the pub.solar organisation? Do you want to support the organisation with labour, money, or just your name?
Active since 2020, in 2025 we founded a registered association in Germany (pub.solar e.V.) as our legal body. Our goal is to get accepted as a non-profit association.
We are always looking for more helping hands and supporters in our voluntary work. Being a member is currently not tied to any costs or privileges, but is rather an indicator of support. We encourage you to become a member even if (or, especially if) you are not very technically versed. Our goal is for pub.solar to be an organisation that helps everyone, especially people that would by themselves not be able to administrate IT infrastructure. We want you to have a voice in the decisions surrounding your services. We want the community to decide together what an IT infrastructure built with solidarity, freedom, privacy, and mutual support in mind would look like.
Feel like joining in? Know what to do? Don't know what to do? Just send the crew a message. We're looking forward to hearing from you!
Financing
The association is financed through donations. To cover our monthly expenses for infrastructure (like servers and domain names), we rely on monthly donations from both members of the association and non-members.
We of course welcome anyone who wants to help and participate!
Our published financial statements are shared here.
Donate via IBAN
pub.solar e.V.
DE22 4306 0967 1370 6467 00
GLS Bank
Scan to donate via GiroCode
Donate via LiberaPay
Imprint
pub.solar e.V.
Board:
Wilhelm-Mauser-Straße 47, Halle 5,
D-50827 Köln,
crew@pub.solar
Our Statutes
Are over here. They are only available in German for now.
Our Privacy Policy
Is over here.
Our hosting
We use a dedicated server from Hetzner GmbH hosted in Germany.
The code for the infrastructure can be found in this git repository.