Everything Hylo can do.
A full reference of the coordination tools available to every group on Hylo. All of these features are included in the free platform unless marked otherwise.
Groups & Community Structure
Hylo's group system is the structural foundation of everything else. Groups can be nested and connected with peer groups, creating networks to collaborate across boundaries.
Create and manage groups
Set up a group with a name, purpose statement, description, location, and banner image. Control visibility (public, protected, or private) and access (open, by request, or invite-only).
Nested groups (subgroups)
Create groups within groups to any depth. A bioregional hub can contain neighborhood groups. A company can contain working committees. Each subgroup has its own agreements, stewards and posts while remaining connected to the parent.
Peer-to-peer group relationships
Connect groups as peers: two independent groups that choose to share a relationship. Peer groups can see each other's public content and members, enabling coalition-building without hierarchy.
Cross-group posting
Post a single discussion, event, request, or offer to multiple groups at once. The post lives in all selected groups simultaneously for one shared conversation.
Group Explorer
A public directory where anyone can browse and discover groups on Hylo. Groups can apply to be listed. Filter by location, topic, or purpose.
Join questions
When someone requests to join a group, stewards can ask custom questions to understand who's joining and why. Answers are visible to stewards during the approval process.
Group types and presets
Groups can be configured for different purposes: mutual aid networks, learning communities, project teams, bioregional hubs, civic groups. Same underlying structure, different default views and suggested features.
Communication
Hylo supports three modes of communication — persistent posts for depth, real-time chat for speed, and direct messages for privacy — all within a unified system.
Posts (Discussions)
Persistent posts with rich text, media, file attachments, geographic location, and topic tags. Posts support reactions and nested comment threads. Discussions are the backbone of deeper coordination — they don't disappear after a day of scrolling.
Chat rooms
Real-time, topic-based chat within any group. Chat rooms sit alongside the post stream, so fast conversation and structured discussion coexist without competing. Groups can create multiple rooms for different topics or working teams.
Direct messages
Private 1:1 or small-group conversations. You can message anyone in any group you are a member of.
Cross-group posting
A single post can belong to multiple groups or chat rooms simultaneously, creating living nodes of coordination across the network.
Rich media
Posts and comments support images, files, links with previews, embedded video, and location data.
Topic tags
Tag posts with #topics to organize content thematically. You can search by #tag and create custom views to filter content by topic.
Mentions
@mention members or groups in posts and comments. Mentioned people receive notifications. Your inbox collects all posts where you've been mentioned.
Reactions
React to posts and comments with emoji. Lightweight feedback without requiring a full reply.
Multiple view types
View shared content as a stream, list, grid, calendar, or map. Groups can customize which views appear in their navigation and which is the default home view.
Search
Full-text search across posts, comments, members, and topics within your groups.
Events
In-person and virtual events with the tools groups need: RSVPs, calendar integration, and geographic location.
Create events
Events are a post type with start/end times, location (physical or virtual), timezone support, and description. They appear in the stream and on the calendar view.
RSVPs
Members can indicate whether they're attending. Stewards can see the guest list and count.
Calendar view
See all upcoming events for a group displayed on a calendar. Filter by group or view across all your groups.
Calendar integration
Export events to external calendars (Google Calendar, iCal, etc.) by RSVPing to an event and receiving a calendar invite email. You can also subscribe to a calendar of all your events in a group, or all your RSVPed events across all your groups.
Location and map
Events can include a physical location that appears on the group's map. Helpful for in-person gatherings where people need to find the place.
Live indicator
Events currently in progress are marked as live in the stream and calendar.
Mutual Support
Requests and offers are the relationship-building engine of Hylo. Every fulfilled exchange grows accountability and trust.
Requests
Post what you need — skills, tools, time, knowledge, labor, rides, advice. Set scope, timing, and location. Visible to your group and, if cross-posted, to connected groups.
Offers
Share what you can give. Same structure as requests — searchable, taggable, locatable.
Completion tracking
Mark requests and offers as fulfilled and they fade from active view. Coming Soon: Select the people who helped complete them. This creates a visible record of mutual support within the community.
Geographic relevance
Requests and offers include location data. Members can browse what's needed or available near them.
Topic categorization
Tag requests and offers by topic — tools, food, transportation, skills, childcare — so members can browse by category.
Expiration and reminders
Requests and offers can have expiration dates. Coming soon: Notifications remind creators to update or close out posts that are no longer active.
AI-assisted matching Coming soon
The AI matchmaker will surface relevant requests and offers to members whose skills, interests, location, and history suggest they can help — reducing the gap between need and response.
Projects
For work that goes beyond a single post, ongoing efforts with tasks, contributors, and timelines.
Projects
Create a project post with a description, members, and linked project management tool. Projects provide a persistent home for coordinated work within a group.
Tasks Coming soon
Assign tasks with statuses and due dates within projects. Contribution visibility over time — see who's doing what. Kanban and other visualizations planned.
Linked content
Connect posts, events, requests, and offers to a project. Everything related to an effort lives in one place.
Project membership
Members can join projects to indicate their involvement. Project contributors are visible to the group.
Governance & Decision-Making
Hylo's governance tools support groups at every stage, from simple polls to structured decision-making processes with quorum and outcome tracking.
Proposals
Create a proposal with a question, description, and voting options. Proposals progress through discussion, voting, and completed phases with visible outcomes.
Flexible voting options
Configure voting with custom options or use presets: Agree/Disagree, Consent/Block/Abstain, Sense Check, or Gradients of Agreement (from whole-hearted endorsement to veto). Choose what fits your group's decision-making culture.
Quorum settings
Set a minimum participation threshold for a vote to be valid. Adjustable percentage of group membership.
Voting timeline
Set start and end times for voting periods. Proposals move through phases automatically, or stewards can manage timing manually.
Outcome tracking
Completed proposals display vote tallies, quorum status, and an outcome summary field where the author can document what was decided and what happens next.
Governance view Coming soon
A dedicated view showing active and past proposals. Active proposals at the top, completed proposals (now "decisions") below with their outcomes. Also displays the group's purpose, values, and agreements.
Agreements
Groups can establish written agreements — commitments, norms, decision-making protocols, codes of conduct. Agreements are displayed on the group's About page and presented to new members for consent before joining.
Agreement consent
All members must consent to current agreements to join a group. If agreements change, members are prompted to review and re-consent.
Roles and responsibilities
Assign roles to members with specific platform responsibilities. Three common roles come with every group: Coordinator (full administration), Moderator (content management), and Host (welcoming and inviting). Each role carries defined powers.
Custom roles
Create roles specific to your group — equipment manager, garden coordinator, childcare lead, outreach coordinator. Custom roles can carry platform responsibilities or simply denote real-world functions. Roles display as badges on member profiles.
Custom responsibilities
Beyond platform responsibilities, create custom ones that represent work members do outside of Hylo. Assign responsibilities to roles so everyone can see who does what.
Collective moderation
Any member can flag a post as violating group agreements. Flagged content is blurred for other members. Others can agree or disagree with the flag. Moderators review and make final decisions.
Map & Place
Hylo organizes people around the places they share. Discover what's happening in your community.
Geographic map
An interactive map showing members, groups, events, requests, offers, and other activity spatially. See what's happening near you, discover nearby groups, and understand the geographic fabric of your community.
Group locations
Groups have geographic locations that appear on the map. A neighborhood group, a regional network, and a global alliance all have different spatial footprints.
Member locations
Members can share their location (at whatever precision they choose) to be discoverable on the map. Location obfuscation protects privacy while still enabling proximity-based discovery.
Map layers: Native territories
Toggle the map layer that show Native territories. Additional map layers showing watersheds, catchment basins, and other ecological boundaries coming soon.
Location on posts
Any post — discussion, event, request, offer — can include a location. Content appears on the map where it's relevant.
Embed via iframe
Groups can embed a Hylo map view on their own website using a custom iframe code block — bringing the living map to wherever their community already gathers online.
Funding Rounds
Participatory funding rounds let groups pool resources and collectively decide where to direct them.
Create a funding round
Set up a round with a total amount, timeline, submission criteria, and voting method. Guide your community through each phase from submission to allocation.
Flexible voting
You can assign any number of votes per participant and set a maximum number of votes they can allocate per submission. You can also distribute currencies/tokens to participants to allocate directly to submissions for a cobudgeting style of voting.
Submission phase
Members submit proposals for funding. Stewards define criteria that submissions need to address. Submissions can be visible during the submission period or hidden until voting begins.
Discussion phase
Community reviews and discusses submitted proposals before voting. Comments, questions, and feedback help the group make informed decisions.
Voting phase
Members vote to allocate the pool across proposals. Results determine distribution.
Outcome and allocation
Results can be displayed transparently or kept anonymous depending on round settings. Completed rounds become part of the group's decision history.
Real-world impact
Float, the Funding Lab for Agroecological Technology, used Hylo's funding rounds to distribute over $700,000 USD to projects in 2025.
Learning Tracks
Tracks are structured sequences of content and associated actions that guide members through a learning journey, onboarding process, or program curriculum.
Create tracks
Build a track with ordered steps — each step can include content, media, discussion prompts, and actions for the member to complete.
Customizeable modules
Actions are individual steps or modules within a track that members complete as they progress. They can be renamed to fit how you use them (e.g. modules, lessons...).
Track membership and progress
See who has started a track, where they are in it, and who has completed it. Stewards get visibility into participation without micromanaging.
Badges on completion
Members who complete a track can receive a badge — visible on their profile. Badges can also unlock specific roles, permissions, or soon access to certain content or chat rooms within the group.
Track-gated access Coming soon
Require completion of a track before accessing certain areas of a group. Useful for onboarding sequences where you want members to have context before participating fully.
Paid tracks Pro
Tracks can be gated behind a payment. Stripe integration handles transactions. Stewards manage subscriptions and access.
Profiles & Directory
Member profiles are how people find each other and understand what each person brings to the community.
Member profiles
Each member has a profile with name, photo, bio, location, skills, interests, and affiliated groups. Profiles are visible to other group members.
Skills and interests
Members list their skills and areas of interest. These are used for discovery, matching, and helping stewards understand what capacities exist within the group.
Member directory
Browse all members of a group with search, filtering, and sorting. See roles, badges, and location at a glance.
Group affiliations
A member's profile shows which groups they belong to (respecting visibility settings — private group memberships aren't exposed to non-members), as well as other affiliations.
Role and badge display
Roles and badges earned through tracks or assigned by stewards are displayed on profiles and next to member names throughout the platform. Hover/tap to see the role description and responsibilities.
Customization
Groups and individuals can customize their Hylo experience — from navigation layout to visual themes.
Custom navigation
Group stewards can choose which views appear in the group's navigation menu and in what order. Show only what's relevant to your community — hide views you don't use.
Custom views
Create custom filtered views of content — by topic, post type, or other criteria. Pin them to the group's navigation for quick access.
Visual themes
Choose from nine visual themes, each with light and dark variants. Themes apply to the entire interface.
Group branding
Each group has its own avatar, banner image, purpose statement, and description. Groups look and feel distinct even within a shared platform. Coming soon: custom group color themes.
Notification customization
Members control their own notification preferences: email, push, in-app, and email digest frequency. Per-group settings let you stay on top of active groups without being overwhelmed by quieter ones.
Stream and feed controls
Members can customize how content is ranked and aggregated in their stream. No algorithmic manipulation — you choose what's surfaced.
Moderation & Safety
Community safety without centralized surveillance. Hylo's moderation tools distribute responsibility to the people closest to the community while providing clear escalation paths.
Community flagging
Any member can flag a post that they believe violates group agreements. They select which specific agreement is being violated. Flagged content is blurred for other members while under review.
Collective review
Other members can agree or disagree with a flag, creating community input on moderation decisions before stewards act.
Steward moderation powers
Moderators can remove content, remove members, and manage topics. Actions are logged and can be communicated to the community.
Group agreements as moderation anchor
Moderation is tied to the group's stated agreements — not arbitrary judgment. When content is flagged, the specific agreement at issue is identified. This grounds moderation in shared commitments rather than individual discretion.
Platform-level enforcement
Hylo's platform stewards monitor the public commons and handle cross-group or platform-level violations. The code of conduct applies everywhere.
Mobile
Hylo is available on iOS and Android with full-featured mobile apps.
Native iOS and Android apps
Download from the App Store or Google Play. The mobile experience covers the core platform — groups, posts, chat, events, map, profiles, notifications.
Push notifications
Real-time push notifications for mentions, replies, new posts, and events. Configurable per group and per notification type.
Mobile map
The full geographic map on mobile — browse nearby activity, find groups, and see your community spatially.
Responsive web
Hylo's web interface is fully responsive. Access from any browser on any device.
Platform & Infrastructure
The structural commitments that make Hylo different from every other community platform.
Open source
Hylo's entire codebase is public under the Apache 2.0 license. Inspect it, contribute to it, fork it.
No ads, no data sales
Hylo does not display advertising and does not sell user data. Ever. Revenue comes from paid products and community contributions.
No algorithmic manipulation
There is no black-box algorithm deciding what you see. Members control their own feed ranking and notification preferences.
Data portability
Groups can export their data. If you leave Hylo, you leave with your information. No lock-in.
Community-governed
Hylo is a fiscally sponsored 501(c)(3) non-profit moving toward participatory governance. The platform's direction is shaped by the communities that use it through participatory design, community calls, and the Building Hylo group.
Privacy controls
Groups control their own visibility and access settings. Members control their own location precision and profile visibility. Hylo never shares personal data without informed consent.
Internationalization
Hylo supports multiple languages and is working toward broader accessibility across ability, culture, and bandwidth.
What’s coming next
Hylo is actively developed by a small team alongside our open-source community. Here’s what’s in progress. Timelines are estimates, not promises — we move at the speed of trust.
AI-Assisted Matching
Intelligent matching of requests, offers, and potential collaborators based on skills, interests, location, and group history. Opt-in per group.
Hylo Assistant
A group-level AI assistant with full context across your group's history, documents, and decisions. Helps stewards with community health, growth guidance, and moderation awareness.
Project Management Upgrades
Tasks with assignments, statuses, and due dates within projects. Kanban visualization. Contribution tracking over time.
Recurring Events
Events that repeat on a schedule — weekly meetings, monthly gatherings. Appear automatically on the calendar and in digests.
Audio and Video Integration
Open-source conferencing built into Hylo. Voice notes for posts and comments. No external platform required for group calls.
Hylo Pro
Expanded storage, video streaming, priority support, and API access for groups that need more capacity.
Hylo Whitelabel
A dedicated Hylo deployment under your organization's brand, domain, and visual identity.
Ecosystem Interoperability
Federation and data exchange with aligned platforms using AT Protocol and/or other open standards. Requests and offers visible across platforms. Shared identity and portable communities.
Member-Led Groups
A governance model where stewardship roles are earned through cumulative trust rather than granted to whoever created the group. Time-bound, scoped leadership designed for shared stewardship.
Hylo Local
Distributed, peer-to-peer infrastructure built on Holochain for communities that need coordination tools resistant to institutional surveillance.
Ready to try it?
All of these features are available right now, free, for every group. Create your group and start coordinating.