The Community Solid Server is open software that provides you with a Solid Pod and identity. This Pod acts as your own personal storage space so you can share data with people and Solid applications.

As an open and modular implementation of the Solid specifications, the Community Solid Server is a great companion:

• 🧑🏽 for people who want to try out having their own Pod

• 👨🏿‍💻 for developers who want to quickly create and test Solid apps

• 👩🏻‍🔬 for researchers who want to design new features for Solid

And, of course, for many others who like to experience Solid.

Make sure you have Node.js 18.0 or higher. If this is your first time using Node.js, you can find instructions on how to do this here.

npx @solid/community-server

Now visit your brand new server at http://localhost:3000/!

To persist your pod's contents between restarts, use:

npx @solid/community-server -c @css:config/file.json -f data/

In case you prefer to use Docker instead, you can find instructions for this and other methods in the documentation.

Substantial changes to server behavior can be achieved via JSON configuration files. The Community Solid Server uses Components.js to specify how modules and components need to be wired together at runtime.

Recipes for configuring the server can be found at CommunitySolidServer/recipes.

Examples and guidance on custom configurations are available in the config folder, and the configurations tutorial. There is also a configuration generator.

The server allows writing and plugging in custom modules without altering its base source code.

The 📗 API documentation and the 📓 user documentation can help you find your way. There is also a repository of 📚 comprehensive tutorials

If the Community Solid Server played a role in your scientific publication, we would appreciate a citation of our article.

@article{CommunitySolidServer,
  title   = {The Community Solid Server: Supporting research \& development in an evolving ecosystem},
  author  = {Van Herwegen, Joanna and Verborgh, Ruben},
  journal = {Semantic Web},
  volume  = {15},
  number  = {6},
  pages   = {2597--2611},
  year    = {2024},
  doi     = {10.3233/SW-243726},
  url     = {https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.3233/SW-243726}
}

The Community Solid Server code is copyrighted by Inrupt Inc. and imec and available under the MIT License.

Don't hesitate to start a discussion or report a bug.

There's also a Matrix-based, CSS-focused chat

Learn more about Solid at solidproject.org.