Adële's blog:: Small, simple with no CSS tricks 'dumb' graphical mastodon client Home Timeline - SmolFedi/smolfedi.pollux.casa
Discovered: Nov 12, 2026 04:10 (UTC) Adële’s blog:: Small, simple with no CSS tricks ‘dumb’ graphical mastodon client Home Timeline - SmolFedi/smolfedi.pollux.casa
QUOTE:
What I wanted was something in between: a client that runs in a plain browser, handles images properly, but does not require a JavaScript engine to display a list of posts. The API returns JSON; a server-side script can turn that JSON into HTML just fine. We have been doing that for 25 years.
So I built SmolFedi.
It is a PHP application. No npm, no Composer, no build step. It uses a SQLite database and basic PHP sessions. Every page is generated server-side and sent as plain HTML. It supports multiple accounts, timelines, notifications, polls, media attachments with alt text, content warnings, compose, reply, boost, favourite, everything I actually use day to day. CSS stays within smolweb Grade B. There is not a single line of JavaScript in the codebase.
It works with Mastodon, GoToSocial and certainly other compatible Fediverse platforms. It works in Firefox, in Chromium, in Safari, in any browser that can render HTML and display a JPEG such as Dillo or Netsurf.
I am not claiming this is the right client for everyone. If you want a smooth single-page experience with live updates and animations, SmolFedi is not that. But if you want to browse the Fediverse on a modest device, a slow connection, or simply a setup where you would rather not run megabytes of JavaScript fetched from the web, SmolFedi is for you.