Repostea

Open-source content aggregation platform - A modern alternative to Reddit/Hacker News that you can self-host.

What is Repostea?

Repostea is a complete platform for building community-driven content aggregation sites. Think Reddit, Hacker News, or Menéame - but open source and self-hosted.

Live demo: Renegados - A Spanish-language community running Repostea in production.

Features

• Content: Posts, comments, polls, media uploads
• Voting: Karma system with reputation levels
• Communities: Multiple "subs" with independent moderation
• Real-time: WebSocket chat (Agora), live notifications
• Federation: ActivityPub support (connect with Mastodon, Lemmy, Mbin)
• i18n: 15+ languages supported
• Auth: Local accounts + OAuth (Google, Twitter, Telegram, Mastodon)
• Moderation: Reports, bans, spam detection, admin panel

Tech Stack

Component	Technology
Backend	Laravel 12, PHP 8.2+
Frontend	Nuxt 3, Vue 3, TypeScript
Database	MySQL 8.0+ / MariaDB 10.6+
Cache/Queue	Redis 7+
WebSocket	Laravel Reverb
Auth	Laravel Sanctum

Quick Start (Development)

Requirements

• PHP 8.2+
• Composer 2.x
• Node.js 18+ and pnpm
• MySQL 8.0+ or MariaDB 10.6+
• Redis 7+

1. Clone repositories

# Backend (this repo)
git clone https://github.com/repostea/server.git
cd server

# Frontend (in a separate directory)
git clone https://github.com/repostea/client.git ../client

2. Backend setup

# Install dependencies
composer install

# Configure environment
cp .env.example .env
php artisan key:generate

# Edit .env with your database credentials
nano .env

# Create database tables
php artisan migrate

# (Optional) Load sample data
php artisan db:seed

# Create storage symlink
php artisan storage:link

3. Frontend setup

cd ../client

# Install dependencies
pnpm install

# Configure environment
cp .env.example .env

4. Start development servers

# Option A: From server directory (starts everything)
cd server
composer dev

# Option B: Manually (two terminals)
# Terminal 1 - Backend
php artisan serve

# Terminal 2 - Frontend
cd client && pnpm dev

Visit:

• Frontend: http://localhost:3000
• API: http://localhost:8000

Quick Start with Docker (Alternative)

Note: Docker is provided for quickly testing the platform locally. For production, we recommend the manual installation described in INSTALL.md.

# Clone both repositories
git clone https://github.com/repostea/server.git
git clone https://github.com/repostea/client.git

# Start everything
cd server
docker compose up -d

# Wait ~2 minutes for first build, then visit:
# http://localhost:3000

Default login: admin / changeme123

To stop: docker compose down

To reset everything: docker compose down -v

Production Deployment

See INSTALL.md for complete production deployment guide including:

• Server requirements
• Nginx/Apache configuration
• SSL setup
• Process management (PM2/Supervisor)
• Performance optimization

Configuration

Essential Environment Variables

Backend (.env):

APP_NAME=YourSiteName
APP_URL=https://api.yoursite.com
FRONTEND_URL=https://yoursite.com

DB_DATABASE=repostea
DB_USERNAME=your_user
DB_PASSWORD=your_password

Frontend (client/.env):

NUXT_PUBLIC_API_BASE=https://api.yoursite.com/api
NUXT_PUBLIC_SITE_URL=https://yoursite.com
NUXT_PUBLIC_APP_NAME=YourSiteName

See .env.example files for all available options.

Project Structure

server/
├── app/
│   ├── Console/Commands/   # Artisan commands
│   ├── Http/Controllers/   # API controllers
│   ├── Models/             # Eloquent models
│   └── Services/           # Business logic
├── database/
│   ├── migrations/         # Database schema
│   └── seeders/            # Sample data
├── routes/
│   ├── api.php             # API routes
│   └── web.php             # Web routes
└── tests/                  # Pest tests

Commands

# Development
composer dev              # Start all services
php artisan serve         # API server only
php artisan queue:listen  # Process background jobs
php artisan reverb:start  # WebSocket server

# Quality
composer quality          # Run Pint + PHPStan + Tests
composer quality-fix      # Auto-fix code style

# Database
php artisan migrate       # Run migrations
php artisan db:seed       # Load sample data
php artisan tinker        # Interactive shell

Testing

# Run all tests
php artisan test

# Run specific test
php artisan test --filter=PostTest

# With coverage
php artisan test --coverage

Contributing

We welcome contributions! Please:

1. Fork the repository
2. Create a feature branch (git checkout -b feature/amazing-feature)
3. Run quality checks (composer quality)
4. Commit your changes
5. Open a Pull Request

Using Repostea?

We'd love to hear from you! If you're running a Repostea instance, please open an issue to let us know.

Related Repositories

• Frontend: repostea/client - Nuxt 3 application

License

GPL-3.0 - You can use, modify, and distribute this software. If you modify and deploy it publicly, you must share your changes.