About Likwid
Likwid is a modular governance engine designed for organizations that need structured, transparent, and auditable decision-making processes.
What Problem Does Likwid Solve?
Most organizations—whether open source projects, political movements, or member associations—struggle with collective decision-making. They often rely on informal processes, ad-hoc polls, or tools designed for other purposes (forums, chat platforms, issue trackers).
These approaches fail in predictable ways:
- Lack of structure — Discussions drift without resolution. Decisions are made implicitly or by whoever speaks loudest.
- No audit trail — When moderation happens, there's no record of why. Shadow banning and hidden decisions erode trust.
- Limited voting methods — Simple majority voting fails for complex decisions with multiple options or competing priorities.
- Participation barriers — Members who can't attend synchronous meetings or follow high-volume discussions are effectively excluded.
Likwid addresses these problems by providing governance as infrastructure: a system that structures deliberation, enforces transparency, and supports sophisticated decision-making methods.
What Likwid Is
A Governance Engine
Likwid provides the core infrastructure for collective decision-making: proposals, deliberation, voting, and implementation tracking.
Modular by Design
Every component is a plugin. Communities choose their voting methods, delegation rules, moderation policies, and integrations.
Transparent by Default
All moderation actions are logged with reasons. There is no shadow banning. Audit trails are cryptographically verifiable.
Self-Hostable
Organizations control their own data. Likwid runs on your infrastructure with no vendor lock-in.
What Likwid Is Not
Not a Social Network
Likwid is not designed for casual conversation, content sharing, or social interactions. It's governance infrastructure.
Not a Simple Poll Tool
While Likwid supports voting, it's designed for complex decisions with deliberation phases, multiple options, and sophisticated tallying methods.
Not a Forum
Discussions in Likwid are structured and goal-oriented. They're part of a decision process, not open-ended conversation.
Not a CRM or Membership System
Likwid handles governance, not member management, donations, or communications. It integrates with those systems.
Who Is Likwid For?
Open Source & FLOSS Communities
Projects that need to make technical and organizational decisions collectively. Maintainers, contributors, and users participating in governance alongside code contribution. Integration with development workflows (GitLab, Forgejo, Gitea) and documentation systems.
Associations & NGOs
Member-driven organizations requiring formal decision processes. Annual general meetings, board decisions, and policy changes with proper record-keeping. Transparent moderation for community standards enforcement.
Political Movements & Parties
Grassroots organizations, civic lists, and political parties. Delegate assemblies, policy development, and candidate selection. Liquid democracy features for modern participatory politics.
Federated & Distributed Organizations
Networks of chapters, working groups, or autonomous units. Coordination across geographic or functional boundaries. Federation features for inter-community governance.
Core Principles
Transparency Over Convenience
Every moderation action is logged with a reason. Audit trails are public. There are no hidden decisions or shadow bans.
Privacy Where It Matters
Voting results visibility can be permissioned. Communities decide who can view results details while keeping participation accessible.
Process Over Features
Governance is a process, not a feature list. Likwid structures deliberation with clear phases: inform, discuss, decide.
Flexibility Over Prescription
Organizations differ. Likwid's plugin architecture lets communities configure governance to match their needs and culture.
Technical Foundation
Likwid is free and open source software (EUPL-1.2), built with modern, auditable technology:
The choice of Rust provides memory safety and performance. PostgreSQL ensures data integrity for critical governance records. The EUPL-1.2 license guarantees that improvements to Likwid remain available to the community.
Learn More
Explore Likwid's capabilities, understand our vision, or see the system in action.