head to head · open source
Lemmy vs Pixelfed
Lemmy has 14,599 GitHub stars, 966 forks, 129 open issues and last shipped 2 days ago. Pixelfed has 7,102 stars, 880 forks, 116 open issues and last shipped yesterday. Lemmy leads on adoption by 106% (14,599 vs 7,102 stars). Lemmy is written in Rust under AGPL-3.0; Pixelfed is written in PHP under AGPL-3.0. Lemmy has attracted 7% as many forks as stars, Pixelfed 12%. Pixelfed 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 | Pixelfed | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 15K | ★ 7.1K |
| License | AGPL-3.0 | AGPL-3.0 |
| Written in | Rust | PHP |
| Last push | 2026-09-16 | 2026-09-17 |
| Forks | ⑂ 966 | ⑂ 880 |
| 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 Pixelfed if
- You want the Pixelfed feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the AGPL-3.0 license terms
- Your stack matches PHP
- You evaluated both and Pixelfed 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 Pixelfed
Pixelfed is an open source, ad free photo sharing platform written in PHP and released under the AGPL 3.0 license. It is built on the Laravel framework and lives in the fediverse, the federated social web, communicating with other servers through the ActivityPub protocol. The project describes itself as photo sharing "the way it should be," letting casual shots and creative photography find an audience without algorithmic barriers.
read the full Pixelfed overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Lemmy or Pixelfed more popular?
Lemmy has 14,599 GitHub stars and Pixelfed has 7,102. Lemmy has the larger community by that measure.
Are Lemmy and Pixelfed free?
Both are open source. Lemmy is licensed under AGPL-3.0 and Pixelfed under AGPL-3.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between Lemmy and Pixelfed?
Lemmy is written in Rust and Pixelfed in PHP. 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 Pixelfed?
Choose Lemmy if you want the larger community (14,599 stars) or its AGPL-3.0 licence terms. Choose Pixelfed if its feature set, stack or AGPL-3.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.