head to head · open source
Lemmy vs owncast
Lemmy has 14,599 GitHub stars, 966 forks, 129 open issues and last shipped 2 days ago. owncast has 11,535 stars, 1,177 forks, 165 open issues and last shipped 2 days ago. Lemmy leads on adoption by 27% (14,599 vs 11,535 stars). Lemmy is written in Rust under AGPL-3.0; owncast is written in Go under MIT. Lemmy has attracted 7% as many forks as stars, owncast 10%. Lemmy was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 3 topic tags (activitypub, chat, 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 | owncast | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 15K | ★ 12K |
| License | AGPL-3.0 | MIT |
| Written in | Rust | Go |
| Last push | 2026-09-16 | 2026-09-16 |
| Forks | ⑂ 966 | ⑂ 1.2K |
| 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 owncast if
- You want the owncast feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches Go
- You evaluated both and owncast 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 owncast
Owncast is an open source, self hosted, single user live video streaming and chat server written in Go, with a React frontend, released under the MIT license. It positions itself as a way to run your own live streams in a style similar to the large mainstream streaming services, while keeping complete ownership over your content, interface, moderation, and audience. The project lives in the fediverse: its topic list covers ActivityPub, federation, and decentralized networking, placing it alongside other federated social software rather than inside a proprietary platform.
read the full owncast overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Lemmy or owncast more popular?
Lemmy has 14,599 GitHub stars and owncast has 11,535. Lemmy has the larger community by that measure.
Are Lemmy and owncast free?
Both are open source. Lemmy is licensed under AGPL-3.0 and owncast under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between Lemmy and owncast?
Lemmy is written in Rust and owncast 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 owncast?
Choose Lemmy if you want the larger community (14,599 stars) or its AGPL-3.0 licence terms. Choose owncast if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.