head to head · open source
Lemmy vs deltachat-desktop
Lemmy has 14,659 GitHub stars, 973 forks, 129 open issues and last shipped yesterday. deltachat-desktop has 1,631 stars, 253 forks, 42 open issues and last shipped yesterday. Lemmy leads on adoption by 799% (14,659 vs 1,631 stars). Lemmy is written in Rust under AGPL-3.0; deltachat-desktop is written in TypeScript under GPL-3.0. Lemmy has attracted 7% as many forks as stars, deltachat-desktop 16%. deltachat-desktop was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 1 topic tag (chat), 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
| Lemmy | deltachat-desktop | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 15K | ★ 1.6K |
| License | AGPL-3.0 | GPL-3.0 |
| Written in | Rust | TypeScript |
| Last push | 2026-11-02 | 2026-11-02 |
| Forks | ⑂ 973 | ⑂ 253 |
| 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 deltachat-desktop if
- You want the deltachat-desktop feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the GPL-3.0 license terms
- Your stack matches TypeScript
- You evaluated both and deltachat-desktop 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 deltachat-desktop
Delta Chat Desktop Desktop Application for delta.chat Editions There is a third, WIP edition based on Tauri instead of Electron. It lives in its own repository — deltachat tauri — and consumes this repository's frontend through a pinned upstream/ submodule. See Fediverse Thread and Delta Tauri nlnet project. Documentation Links For Users Troubleshooting CLI flags Keybindings How to make custom Themes For Developers Contribution Guidelines Logging Documentation for Developers Styling Guidelines How to update core How to do end to end testing How to do a release Table of Contents Click to expand Delta Chat Desktop…
read the full deltachat-desktop overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Lemmy or deltachat-desktop more popular?
Lemmy has 14,659 GitHub stars and deltachat-desktop has 1,631. Lemmy has the larger community by that measure.
Are Lemmy and deltachat-desktop free?
Both are open source. Lemmy is licensed under AGPL-3.0 and deltachat-desktop under GPL-3.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between Lemmy and deltachat-desktop?
Lemmy is written in Rust and deltachat-desktop in TypeScript. 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 deltachat-desktop?
Choose Lemmy if you want the larger community (14,659 stars) or its AGPL-3.0 licence terms. Choose deltachat-desktop if its feature set, stack or GPL-3.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.