head to head · open source
Lemmy vs fedify
Lemmy has 14,659 GitHub stars, 973 forks, 129 open issues and last shipped yesterday. fedify has 1,030 stars, 144 forks, 95 open issues and last shipped yesterday. Lemmy leads on adoption by 1,323% (14,659 vs 1,030 stars). Lemmy is written in Rust under AGPL-3.0; fedify is written in TypeScript under MIT. Lemmy has attracted 7% as many forks as stars, fedify 14%. fedify was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 2 topic tags (activitypub, fediverse), 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 | fedify | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 15K | ★ 1.0K |
| License | AGPL-3.0 | MIT |
| Written in | Rust | TypeScript |
| Last push | 2026-11-02 | 2026-11-02 |
| Forks | ⑂ 973 | ⑂ 144 |
| 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 fedify if
- You want the fedify feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches TypeScript
- You evaluated both and fedify 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 fedify
Fedify: an ActivityPub server framework ======================================================= [![JSR][JSR badge]][JSR] [![npm][npm badge]][npm] [![GitHub Actions][GitHub Actions badge]][GitHub Actions] [![Matrix][Matrix badge]][Matrix] [![@fedify@hackers.pub][@fedify@hackers.pub badge]][@fedify@hackers.pub] Fedify is a TypeScript library for building federated server apps powered by [ActivityPub] and other standards, so called [fediverse].[^1] It aims to eliminate the complexity and boilerplate code when building a federated server app, so that you can focus on your business logic and user experience…
read the full fedify overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Lemmy or fedify more popular?
Lemmy has 14,659 GitHub stars and fedify has 1,030. Lemmy has the larger community by that measure.
Are Lemmy and fedify free?
Both are open source. Lemmy is licensed under AGPL-3.0 and fedify under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between Lemmy and fedify?
Lemmy is written in Rust and fedify 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 fedify?
Choose Lemmy if you want the larger community (14,659 stars) or its AGPL-3.0 licence terms. Choose fedify if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.