head to head · open source
Lemmy vs Ech0
Lemmy has 14,599 GitHub stars, 966 forks, 129 open issues and last shipped 2 days ago. Ech0 has 2,056 stars, 159 forks, 6 open issues and last shipped 4 days ago. Lemmy leads on adoption by 610% (14,599 vs 2,056 stars). Lemmy is written in Rust under AGPL-3.0; Ech0 is written in Go under AGPL-3.0. Lemmy has attracted 7% as many forks as stars, Ech0 8%. Lemmy 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 | Ech0 | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 15K | ★ 2.1K |
| License | AGPL-3.0 | AGPL-3.0 |
| Written in | Rust | Go |
| Last push | 2026-09-16 | 2026-09-14 |
| Forks | ⑂ 966 | ⑂ 159 |
| 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 Ech0 if
- You want the Ech0 feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the AGPL-3.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Go
- You evaluated both and Ech0 fits your workflow better
About Lemmy
Lemmy is a link aggregator and forum platform for the Fediverse, written in Rust and released under the AGPL 3.0 license. It supports communities where users subscribe to forums, post links and discussions, vote, and comment. Each server can operate independently while remaining federated through ActivityPub, so users on one server can interact with users and communities on other servers.
read the full Lemmy overview →
About Ech0
Ech0 is an open source, self hosted publishing platform for personal idea sharing. It lives in the open source self hosted microblog ecosystem, using Go and Vue, SQLite storage, and Markdown based posts. The project is built as a lightweight personal microblog, not as a full social network or a team workspace. Ech0 is licensed under AGPL 3.0. It stays lightweight and easy to deploy.
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Frequently asked questions
Is Lemmy or Ech0 more popular?
Lemmy has 14,599 GitHub stars and Ech0 has 2,056. Lemmy has the larger community by that measure.
Are Lemmy and Ech0 free?
Both are open source. Lemmy is licensed under AGPL-3.0 and Ech0 under AGPL-3.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between Lemmy and Ech0?
Lemmy is written in Rust and Ech0 in Go. 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 Ech0?
Choose Lemmy if you want the larger community (14,599 stars) or its AGPL-3.0 licence terms. Choose Ech0 if its feature set, stack or AGPL-3.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.