Berlin-based startup Periwinkle launches a managed service for the open source AT Protocol, enabling users to run self-hosted social media accounts while retaining control over their data and digital identity.
Managed infrastructure is beginning to form around the open-source AT Protocol ecosystem as Berlin-based startup Periwinkle launches a service designed to make self-hosted social media easier to operate.
The new platform enables users to run social media accounts using the same decentralised, open-source AT Protocol that powers Bluesky. Instead of relying on centralised platforms controlled by large technology companies, users can operate their social identities from their own domain and infrastructure.
With the service, users can host accounts on their own domain and store posts, follows, and profile data on their own Personal Data Server (PDS), a core component of the AT Protocol architecture.
Periwinkle simplifies the process by managing the technical infrastructure behind these personal data servers. The company handles updates, backups, and monitoring, allowing users to focus on social interaction rather than server maintenance.
Founder Charles Blumenthal said the service aims to remove barriers to decentralised social networking.
“We’ll be the first-to-market fully managed PDS service; there is nobody else that is doing this right now,” he said.
Blumenthal also criticised the concentration of control in mainstream social media platforms.
“It’s really not a great idea that a couple of billionaires have control over the way billions of people communicate.”
“If you could leave Twitter to some competitor and all of your followers and all of your content and everything — it just is there with you, and you just log in — you would do it, right?”
The approach arrives as Bluesky surpasses 43 million users, signalling growing interest in decentralised social networks and user-owned data.
