head to head · open source
glance vs Lemmy
glance has 37,981 GitHub stars, 1,506 forks, 318 open issues and last shipped yesterday. Lemmy has 14,659 stars, 973 forks, 129 open issues and last shipped yesterday. glance leads on adoption by 159% (37,981 vs 14,659 stars). glance is written in Go under AGPL-3.0; Lemmy is written in Rust under AGPL-3.0. glance has attracted 4% as many forks as stars, Lemmy 7%. Lemmy was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 1 topic tag (reddit), so they are genuine substitutes rather than adjacent tools.
Two open source projects, one decision. Both are free and self-hostable — the differences are community size, license terms, language stack and release pace.
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Side by side
| glance | Lemmy | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 38K | ★ 15K |
| License | AGPL-3.0 | AGPL-3.0 |
| Written in | Go | Rust |
| Last push | 2026-11-02 | 2026-11-02 |
| Forks | ⑂ 1.5K | ⑂ 973 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick glance if
- You weight community size — 38K stars and counting
- You want the AGPL-3.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Go
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick Lemmy if
- You want the Lemmy feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the AGPL-3.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Rust
- You evaluated both and Lemmy fits your workflow better
About glance
Glance Install • Configuration • Discord • Sponsor Community widgets • Preconfigured pages • Themes A lightweight, highly customizable dashboard that displays your feeds in a beautiful, streamlined interface Features Various widgets RSS feeds Subreddit posts Hacker News posts Weather forecasts YouTube channel uploads Twitch channels Market prices Docker containers status Server stats Custom widgets and many more... Fast and lightweight Low memory usage Few dependencies Minimal vanilla JS Single Configuration Configuration is done through YAML files, to learn more about how the layout works, how to add more pages…
read the full glance overview →
About Lemmy
English Español Русский 汉语 漢語 日本語 Lemmy A link aggregator and forum for the fediverse. Join Lemmy · Documentation · Matrix Chat · Report Bug · Request Feature · Releases · Code of Conduct About The Project Lemmy is similar to sites like Reddit, Lobste.rs, or Hacker News: you subscribe to forums you're interested in, post links and discussions, then vote, and comment on them. Behind the scenes, it is very different; anyone can easily run a server, and all these servers are federated (think email), and connected to the same universe, called the Fediverse. For a link aggregator, this means a user registered on one…
read the full Lemmy overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is glance or Lemmy more popular?
glance has 37,981 GitHub stars and Lemmy has 14,659. glance has the larger community by that measure.
Are glance and Lemmy free?
Both are open source. glance is licensed under AGPL-3.0 and Lemmy under AGPL-3.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between glance and Lemmy?
glance is written in Go and Lemmy in Rust. The practical differences are community size, licence terms, language stack and release cadence — all compared in the table above.
Which should I choose, glance or Lemmy?
Choose glance if you want the larger community (37,981 stars) or its AGPL-3.0 licence terms. Choose Lemmy if its feature set, stack or AGPL-3.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.