head to head · open source
glance vs Pixelfed
glance has 37,086 GitHub stars, 1,463 forks, 318 open issues and last shipped 13 days ago. Pixelfed has 7,102 stars, 880 forks, 116 open issues and last shipped yesterday. glance leads on adoption by 422% (37,086 vs 7,102 stars). glance is written in Go under AGPL-3.0; Pixelfed is written in PHP under AGPL-3.0. glance has attracted 4% as many forks as stars, Pixelfed 12%. Pixelfed was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee.
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 | Pixelfed | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 37K | ★ 7.1K |
| License | AGPL-3.0 | AGPL-3.0 |
| Written in | Go | PHP |
| Last push | 2026-09-05 | 2026-09-17 |
| Forks | ⑂ 1.5K | ⑂ 880 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick glance if
- You weight community size — 37K 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 Pixelfed if
- You want the Pixelfed feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the AGPL-3.0 license terms
- Your stack matches PHP
- You evaluated both and Pixelfed fits your workflow better
About glance
Glance is a self hosted dashboard application written in Go and released under the AGPL 3.0 license. It gathers feeds and status information from many sources into a single customizable page, so that a user can read news, follow channels and watch server health from one interface instead of opening a separate tab or application for each source. It lives in the self hosted and homelab ecosystem, alongside other Docker packaged services that users run on their own hardware. The project has been on GitHub for about two years, holds roughly 37,000 stars and 1,454 forks, and its topic list places it among aggregators,…
read the full glance overview →
About Pixelfed
Pixelfed is an open source, ad free photo sharing platform written in PHP and released under the AGPL 3.0 license. It is built on the Laravel framework and lives in the fediverse, the federated social web, communicating with other servers through the ActivityPub protocol. The project describes itself as photo sharing "the way it should be," letting casual shots and creative photography find an audience without algorithmic barriers.
read the full Pixelfed overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is glance or Pixelfed more popular?
glance has 37,086 GitHub stars and Pixelfed has 7,102. glance has the larger community by that measure.
Are glance and Pixelfed free?
Both are open source. glance is licensed under AGPL-3.0 and Pixelfed under AGPL-3.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between glance and Pixelfed?
glance is written in Go and Pixelfed in PHP. 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 Pixelfed?
Choose glance if you want the larger community (37,086 stars) or its AGPL-3.0 licence terms. Choose Pixelfed if its feature set, stack or AGPL-3.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.