A/SIDE is a private social networking application designed to provide a curated experience for sharing photos, videos, and personal updates with a specific circle of friends and family. Unlike mainstream social media platforms, A/SIDE operates without an algorithmic feed, meaning content appears in a strictly chronological order—newest first. The platform emphasizes privacy by excluding advertisements, analytics SDKs, and the use of user content for training artificial intelligence models. Users join the network via email and establish connections through personal invite links, ensuring that there are no public profiles or searchable user directories.
This image illustrates the platform's core design of a strictly chronological feed without algorithmic interference.
The application employs a tiered privacy model for its content. While direct and group conversations are protected by end-to-end encryption using Signal Protocol primitives, feed posts are shared with approved connections and stored on A/SIDE's servers. To manage these audiences, the app features a 'Lists' system, allowing users to categorize connections into private groups (such as 'Family' or 'Close Friends'). When a user publishes a post, they select the specific List to define the audience; notably, changes to a List's membership do not retroactively alter the audience of posts already shared to that group. Additionally, the app includes a voice caption feature, allowing users to attach up to one minute of audio to a photo post, which friends can play on demand.
The Lists system allows for granular audience control, such as separating family from close friends.
This screenshot demonstrates the messaging component of the application which utilizes Signal Protocol primitives.
From a technical and infrastructure standpoint, A/SIDE distinguishes itself through independent hosting and open-source transparency. The core servers, databases, and storage systems run on an independent provider outside of the major cloud ecosystems like AWS, Google Cloud, or Azure. The project's source code—including the backend and the Flutter-based mobile client—is publicly available for audit. The service operates on a freemium model: free accounts have access to the most recent 30 days of feed and message history, while 'Pro' subscriptions provide unlimited history. This structure is intended to balance accessibility with the costs of maintaining independent infrastructure while ensuring that older content is not automatically deleted from the system's storage.