About Community Engine


Community Engine is an open-source community platform builder designed to empower people and organizations to connect, collaborate, and care for one another. Developed by Better Together Solutions with a deep commitment to equity, accessibility, and sustainability, Community Engine helps communities of all kinds build resilient digital spaces—owned and governed by the people who use them.

Our Vision


We envision a world where technology strengthens communities rather than divides them—a world where platforms are democratic by design, not dominated by corporate interests or surveillance capitalism. Community Engine exists to support that vision by giving people the tools to:
  • Tell their own stories
  • Organize collectively
  • Share knowledge and resources
  • Create value together, and exchange it fairly

Platform

Community Engine is a modular platform for community infrastructure.

It brings together publishing, participation, governance, coordination, and extensibility in one open-source system that communities can run, adapt, and steward over time.

Fit

  • Community organizations and networks
  • Worker co-ops and solidarity-economy projects
  • Unions, advocacy groups, and public-interest initiatives
  • Teams that want local control over data and infrastructure

Not a rented audience.

Community Engine is designed for groups that do not want their organizing, publishing, or governance capacity trapped inside commercial platforms. Communities can host it, adapt it, and understand how it works.

Not just a CMS.

The platform combines content, events, groups, governance, exchange, search, and mapping so communities can coordinate actual work rather than stitching together disconnected tools.

Open-source by default.

The platform source is public and adaptable. The goal is to increase community control, reduce lock-in, and make stewardship legible rather than hidden behind a vendor boundary.

Built for long-term capacity.

Hosting and support matter, but so do training, documentation, and paths toward self-operation. The platform is meant to help communities grow their own capability over time.

Whether you're a cooperative, nonprofit, mutual aid network, or grassroots group, Community Engine helps you build a digital home that aligns with your values.

Key Features

Modular, Block-Based Content Management
Build dynamic, multilingual pages with accessible, mobile-friendly layouts—no technical expertise required.

Community Management Tools
Empower members to participate, lead, and shape your platform. Assign roles, manage permissions, and create meaningful participation pathways.

Multilingual Support with Auto-Translation
Language should never be a barrier. Community Engine supports translatable fields and background translation jobs, currently in English, French, and Spanish.

Encrypted Messaging and Secure Hosting
Your data is yours. With support for encryption at rest and end-to-end encryption (coming soon), plus self-hosted deployment options, your platform remains safe, private, and yours to control.

Federated and Cooperative-Ready
Built with federated governance in mind, Community Engine is ideal for platform cooperatives and networks that need to collaborate while remaining locally rooted.


Built for and by Communities


Community Engine was created out of real-world needs, not just theory. From helping newcomers to Newfoundland and Labrador feel welcomed and informed, to building capacity in under-resourced communities, it’s a platform grounded in lived experience and powered by collaboration.

We believe in shared ownership, intentional design, and collaborative stewardship. Our mission is to equip communities with the tools to thrive—digitally and socially.

How We Work


Open Source under the LGPLv3 license

Developed in Ruby on Rails with a focus on accessibility, modularity, and long-term maintainability

Community-led Development via Better Together Solutions, a future worker co-op stewarding the platform’s evolution


Join Us


Community Engine is more than software—it’s a movement toward accessible, just, and joyful community tech. If you’re curious about using it, contributing to it, or building with us, we’d love to hear from you.

Contact us or explore the documentation.