Karrot and foodsharing share the same origins and are in many ways connected and friendly projects. Due to this connection and Karrot’s history as foodsaving worldwide, many may wonder: what are the differences between the projects? What is similar? When starting a foodsaving group, which software to choose? Let’s have a look at this together!
I invite you to contribute to this post, it’s a wiki style article.
Overview
| Category | Karrot | foodsharing.network |
|---|---|---|
| Main instance | https://karrot.world/ | https://foodsharing.network/ or https://foodsharing.de/ |
| Open-Source | yes | yes |
| Other Instances | yes | no |
| Repository | karrot - Codeberg.org | foodsharing-dev · GitLab |
| In a nutshell (or what the landing page says) | Karrot is a free and open-source tool for grassroots initiatives and groups of people that want to coordinate face-to-face activities on a local, autonomous and voluntary basis. It is designed in ways to enable community-building and support a more transparent, democratic and participatory governance of your group. | We see ourselves as an environmental and educational movement that campaigns against the careless use of resources and for a sustainable food system. Our long-term goal is to end the waste of edible food. That’s why we take action locally: we save food in private households and businesses, engage in dialog with politicians and take our vision out into the world. |
| Multi-language | yes see karrot localization | Transifex with 12 languages more than 50% | yes see foodsharing @ Hosted Weblate with 9 languages more than 50% (although some parts still not fully translatable) |
| Activities beyond foodsaving | yes, depending on the focus of the respective group | within the vision of foodsharing.de (political, educational activism) |
| Understanding of groups | Each Karrot group is autonomous and will set their own vision and mission, along with their governance and community rules, supported by the software. Users will need to apply for each group they want to join. | foodsharing.de serves as a platform for the foodsharing movement. The local chapters are called “regions” and are embedded in the governance. Regions are open to join for any user of the platform. |
| Governance of the project | Karrot Team responsible, Karrot Team & Feedback group for wider connections among groups, users and friends of Karrot | foodsharing development, support and product team etc. are working groups in the foodsharing movement |
| Legal entity | no own entity, Wandel würzen e.V. as legal guardian, personal liability | foodsharing e.V. in Germany |
| Number of active users on main instance (last 7 days) | ~ 1 000 | ~ 40 000 |
| Money | < 50 000 € | foodsharing e.V: < 200 000€ , IT department < 500 € |
Features
| Feature | Karrot | foodsharing.network |
|---|---|---|
| Sign-up & Profiles | yes | yes |
| Chat among group members | yes | yes |
| Places or Stores | yes | yes |
| Subforum for Place/ Store | yes | yes |
| Visibility of Subforum | all group | restricted |
| Activities for Place/ Store | yes | yes |
| Sign-up for activities | all group | restricted |
| Public activities | yes | no |
| Polls | not yet | yes |
| Editing rights | trust based | admin based* |
| Removing of members | process based | admin based* |
| Roles | not yet | yes* |
* rights on the platform are tied to predefined roles (‘ambassador’, ‘store coordinator’, ‘organisational’ etc)
