head to head · open source
Lemmy vs amethyst
Lemmy has 14,659 GitHub stars, 973 forks, 129 open issues and last shipped yesterday. amethyst has 1,617 stars, 227 forks, 114 open issues and last shipped yesterday. Lemmy leads on adoption by 807% (14,659 vs 1,617 stars). Lemmy is written in Rust under AGPL-3.0; amethyst is written in Kotlin under MIT. Lemmy has attracted 7% as many forks as stars, amethyst 14%. amethyst 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
| Lemmy | amethyst | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 15K | ★ 1.6K |
| License | AGPL-3.0 | MIT |
| Written in | Rust | Kotlin |
| Last push | 2026-11-02 | 2026-11-02 |
| Forks | ⑂ 973 | ⑂ 227 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick Lemmy if
- You weight community size — 15K stars and counting
- You want the AGPL-3.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Rust
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick amethyst if
- You want the amethyst feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches Kotlin
- You evaluated both and amethyst fits your workflow better
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 →
About amethyst
Amethyst Nostr Client for Android Join the social network you control. Download and Install Android Desktop Coming soon (separate PR): Scoop (Windows), AUR (Arch Linux). Build from source: see BUILDING.md. Install troubleshooting (Gatekeeper / SmartScreen / AppImage): see BUILDING.md § Troubleshooting installs. Verifying the APK signature If you sideload Amethyst (Obtainium, GitHub Releases, Zap Store), verify that your APK is signed by the official release key before installing. All official Amethyst APKs — both the googleplay and fdroid flavors — are signed with the same certificate, whose SHA 256 fingerprint…
read the full amethyst overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Lemmy or amethyst more popular?
Lemmy has 14,659 GitHub stars and amethyst has 1,617. Lemmy has the larger community by that measure.
Are Lemmy and amethyst free?
Both are open source. Lemmy is licensed under AGPL-3.0 and amethyst under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between Lemmy and amethyst?
Lemmy is written in Rust and amethyst in Kotlin. The practical differences are community size, licence terms, language stack and release cadence — all compared in the table above.
Which should I choose, Lemmy or amethyst?
Choose Lemmy if you want the larger community (14,659 stars) or its AGPL-3.0 licence terms. Choose amethyst if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.