Version 1.7.0

Betula 1.7.0 is the ninth release of Betula. It was released on 2026-05-05, three months and a week after v1.6.0.

• Git ref + Executable files for all OS
• bouncepaw/betula:v1.7.0 (Docker Hub)

See the installation guide.

Project updates

• The new address of the project is https://joinbetula.org!

  • The contents of this website are now under CC0 v1.0 (closest thing to being in public domain). Note that Betula itself retains the AGPLv3 license, and the libraries have various licenses.

• We now provide pre-built executable files for FreeBSD, Linux, NetBSD, OpenBSD, Plan 9, Mac OS, and Windows. All are available in amd64 and arm64 variants, except for Plan 9, which is amd64 only.

  • For packagers: we encourage you to keep building the packages the old way, without relying on our pre-built packages.

• Betula is now available on Docker Hub! See bouncepaw/betula.

  To quickly run Betula with Docker, you could use this command:

  docker run -p 1738:1738 -v betula-data:/data --name betula bouncepaw/betula:v1.7.0

  We also provide an example compose.yml file.

Changes

• Log servers integration. In Settings > Logging, it is possible to set up a URL server to send JSON logs to in ECS format. Compatible log servers include Victoria Logs, the ELK stack, Loki, and other systems.

  We recommend Victoria Logs. This is the only log server we test with.

  It is possible to use any number of Betula instances with one log server.

  

• Fediverse compatibility improvements:

  • Betula now acknowledges reposts made in non-Betula software with ActivityPub's Announce activity; that includes non-quote-reposts in Mastodon-like software.

  • Betula profiles now have proper userpics (the project logo) seen in other networks. They are the same for every Betula for now.

• New Ctrl/Cmd+Enter shortcut available in all forms (such as saving a new bookmark) to quickly submit them.

• Internally, we refactored a lot of things, made visual adjustments and enabled many linters.

  • When you save a bookmark without providing a title, a default title should take less time to fetch.

  • REUSE annotations are more complete now.

  • We replaced the CGO build of SQLite to a WASM build.

    • For packagers: you can drop the CGO requirement now.

  • New version of Mycomarkup library with a fix to parsing nested lists.

  • Required Go version bumped to 1.24.13.

• Experimental feature: you can explicitly refetch the profiles of other people by visiting /experimental/refetch-actors. This will be reworked heavily in the future versions.

Removed features

• It's no longer possible to repost IndieWeb-formatted non-ActivityPub bookmarks.

  We believe few people knew about this feature, and none of them used it. Conforming websites are rare, and it's impossible to tell if a website is conforming without looking at the markup.

  Betula continues to produce the IndieWeb microformats.

• Links in the profile that led to the oldest and the newest bookmarks and the corresponding endpoints are removed.

  We might show the day a betulist joined the network in the profile in the future, similar to Mastodon.

Funding

This release was funded through Open Social Fund, a fund established by NLnet. Learn more at the NLnet project page.

Developers

• bouncepaw worked on moving the project website, log servers integration, deprecated features, removed CGO requirement and fixed some things. Follow @bouncepaw@links.bouncepaw.com.

• danilax86 worked on pre-built executables, linters, the hotkey and internal things. Follow @danila@links.danilax86.space.

• Vitstark worked on the container and the Docker Hub release.

• broadway_lamb fixed some text. Follow @broadway_lamb@links.broadwaylamb.com.

• On Mycomarkup side, timds contributed the nested lists fix.

Thank you. Join us for the next release!