head to head · open source
Lemmy vs misskey
Lemmy has 14,599 GitHub stars, 966 forks, 129 open issues and last shipped 2 days ago. misskey has 11,327 stars, 1,616 forks, 2,535 open issues and last shipped yesterday. Lemmy leads on adoption by 29% (14,599 vs 11,327 stars). Lemmy is written in Rust under AGPL-3.0; misskey is written in TypeScript under AGPL-3.0. Lemmy has attracted 7% as many forks as stars, misskey 14%. misskey 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 | misskey | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 15K | ★ 11K |
| License | AGPL-3.0 | AGPL-3.0 |
| Written in | Rust | TypeScript |
| Last push | 2026-09-16 | 2026-09-17 |
| Forks | ⑂ 966 | ⑂ 1.6K |
| 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 misskey if
- You want the misskey feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the AGPL-3.0 license terms
- Your stack matches TypeScript
- You evaluated both and misskey 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 misskey
Misskey is an open source, federated social media platform that is free forever, released under the AGPL 3.0 license. It is written in TypeScript and lives in the fediverse, the network of interoperable social platforms built on the ActivityPub protocol. The project has been developed for roughly ten years and carries the topics activitypub, federation, fediverse, microblog, and misskey. Its homepage and documentation hub is hosted at misskey hub.net.
read the full misskey overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Lemmy or misskey more popular?
Lemmy has 14,599 GitHub stars and misskey has 11,327. Lemmy has the larger community by that measure.
Are Lemmy and misskey free?
Both are open source. Lemmy is licensed under AGPL-3.0 and misskey under AGPL-3.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between Lemmy and misskey?
Lemmy is written in Rust and misskey 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 misskey?
Choose Lemmy if you want the larger community (14,599 stars) or its AGPL-3.0 licence terms. Choose misskey if its feature set, stack or AGPL-3.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.