A free and open database and web application for farming and gardening knowledge, like a Wikipedia for growing plants.
OpenFarm was a free and open database and web application designed as a Wikipedia for growing plants. It provided a platform for creating and sharing structured Growing Guides that contained detailed instructions on how to cultivate various plants, from tomatoes to herbs. The project aimed to centralize gardening knowledge and make it accessible to everyone.
Gardeners, farmers, horticulture enthusiasts, and community contributors looking for a collaborative platform to share and access detailed plant-growing information. It also served developers and organizations needing open agricultural data.
As a completely free and open-source platform with all data in the public domain, OpenFarm offered a unique, community-driven alternative to proprietary gardening databases. Its structured guide format and focus on accessibility made it a valuable resource for both beginners and experienced growers.
A free and open database for farming and gardening knowledge. You can grow anything!
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All data was released into the public domain under CC0, allowing free access and reuse for any purpose, as specified in the Data License section.
The platform enabled collaborative creation of structured Growing Guides, similar to a Wikipedia for plants, fostering shared gardening knowledge.
Website content was translatable via Transifex, aiming to serve a global audience and reduce language barriers in agricultural education.
Provided both Vagrant and manual setup instructions, including Docker options for ElasticSearch, easing local development for contributors.
Servers were shut down in April 2025 due to dwindling usage and lack of maintenance, making the live service completely unavailable.
Self-hosting requires installing multiple dependencies like Ruby, Rails, ElasticSearch v6.5.0, and MongoDB, with noted issues on Linux systems, increasing setup effort.
As admitted in the shutdown notice, OpenFarm never gained enough traction to become self-sustaining, leading to its closure despite a decade of operation.