Design and implementation of an online marketplace application using the ActivityPub protocol
Stoiana, Radu Andrei (2026)
Kandidaatintyö
2026
School of Engineering Science, Tietotekniikka
Kaikki oikeudet pidätetään.
Julkaisun pysyvä osoite on
https://urn.fi/URN:NBN:fi-fe2026052552869
https://urn.fi/URN:NBN:fi-fe2026052552869
Tiivistelmä
The consumer-to-consumer e-commerce market is currently dominated by centralized, proprietary platforms that enforce "walled gardens", extracting value through monopolistic practices and network effects while locking in valuable user data. As decentralized social networking gains traction and expands, this thesis investigates the feasibility of diversifying the commercial digital landscape by designing and implementing a decentralized online marketplace application, called Feditrade, utilizing the open ActivityPub protocol.
Following the Design Science Research Methodology, the study engineers a software artifact that strictly complies with the W3C ActivityPub specification. To successfully represent complex economic transactions, the system natively integrates the REA-based Valueflows ontology as outlined in the Fediverse Enhancement Proposal 0837 while still maintaining limited compatibility with simple microblogging applications in the Fediverse.
Feditrade is a full-stack application built using a monolithic architecture within the Next.js framework. Different design decisions and tradeoffs are explained like the decision to rely on external services within the difficult context of decentralized web development. End-to-end testing is performed to ensure users can successfully complete economic transactions while ultimately proving that functional, interoperable e-commerce platforms can be built on the decentralized web.
Following the Design Science Research Methodology, the study engineers a software artifact that strictly complies with the W3C ActivityPub specification. To successfully represent complex economic transactions, the system natively integrates the REA-based Valueflows ontology as outlined in the Fediverse Enhancement Proposal 0837 while still maintaining limited compatibility with simple microblogging applications in the Fediverse.
Feditrade is a full-stack application built using a monolithic architecture within the Next.js framework. Different design decisions and tradeoffs are explained like the decision to rely on external services within the difficult context of decentralized web development. End-to-end testing is performed to ensure users can successfully complete economic transactions while ultimately proving that functional, interoperable e-commerce platforms can be built on the decentralized web.