About locali¶
locali is a private side project — born from a concrete problem and a clear conviction: local communities deserve their own, independent digital infrastructure. Digital self-determination is not a technical hobby — it is a prerequisite for lived local democracy.
Why this project¶
Local communication in Germany is fragmented. Municipalities use their website, clubs post on Facebook, initiatives send newsletters — and the resident who simply wants to know what's happening in their community has to monitor dozens of channels.
The existing platforms are not the problem — they work. But they were not built for local communities. They were built for reach, advertising, and growth. And they are run by companies that are neither based in Europe nor have local democracy as a goal.
This is not an abstract problem: whoever controls the communication infrastructure of a community has influence over what is visible — and what is not. Local clubs, initiatives, and municipalities that organise their public presence through external platforms make themselves dependent on algorithms, terms of service, and decisions made elsewhere.
locali is an attempt to change that: a platform built explicitly for local communities — self-hosted, privacy-compliant, without dependency on external services or commercial interests. Digital independence as the foundation for local agency.
Who is behind it¶
locali is a solo project. No company, no team, no investor. Built in spare time — out of genuine interest in the problem and a desire to build something useful.
That also means: no roadmap guarantees, no SLA, no support contract. What there is: direct communication, genuine interest in feedback, and a willingness to develop the product together with early operators.
Open source — planned¶
The source code is not yet public. A release as an open-source project is planned once the software reaches a stable state and a clean setup guide exists.
The goal: a project that every municipality, club, and initiative can run themselves — without depending on a central service.
Hosting and infrastructure¶
The current test environment runs on netcup in Karlsruhe — a German hosting provider. No American hyperscaler, no data outside the EU.
AI integration¶
For AI-assisted features (e.g. automatic tagging of content), locali supports two approaches:
- Ollama (local): AI models run directly on your own server — fully sovereign, no data leaves your infrastructure. Requires more capable hardware.
- External AI providers: Currently, only US-based providers are supported alongside Ollama. This is a deliberate compromise for getting started — and an open item. The architecture is designed so that additional providers (e.g. European alternatives) can be added.
Open source components used¶
locali would not be possible without a strong foundation of open-source software. Thank you to all communities and maintainers of these projects:
Frontend¶
| Project | Use | Licence |
|---|---|---|
| Angular | Web framework | MIT |
| Angular Material | UI components (Material Design 3) | MIT |
| NgRx Signals | Reactive state management | MIT |
| ngx-translate | Multilingual support | MIT |
Backend¶
| Project | Use | Licence |
|---|---|---|
| .NET / ASP.NET Core | Backend framework and API | MIT |
| Entity Framework Core | Database access and ORM | MIT |
| Mediator | Command/query pattern | MIT |
| ErrorOr | Error handling without exceptions | MIT |
| Docling | PDF extraction for municipal bulletins | MIT |
Infrastructure¶
| Project | Use | Licence |
|---|---|---|
| PostgreSQL | Database | PostgreSQL |
| Keycloak | Identity and access management | Apache 2.0 |
| Traefik | Reverse proxy | MIT |
| Grafana | Monitoring dashboards | AGPL 3.0 |
| Prometheus | Metrics collection | Apache 2.0 |
| OpenTelemetry | Distributed tracing | Apache 2.0 |
| Ollama | Local AI models | MIT |
Ideas, feedback, involvement¶
If something is missing, you have an idea, or you're simply interested in the project — get in touch. Contact: Imprint.