head to head · open source
Lemmy vs Reddit-Enhancement-Suite
Lemmy has 14,659 GitHub stars, 973 forks, 129 open issues and last shipped yesterday. Reddit-Enhancement-Suite has 4,545 stars, 895 forks, 683 open issues and last shipped 2 days ago. Lemmy leads on adoption by 223% (14,659 vs 4,545 stars). Lemmy is written in Rust under AGPL-3.0; Reddit-Enhancement-Suite is written in JavaScript under GPL-3.0. Lemmy has attracted 7% as many forks as stars, Reddit-Enhancement-Suite 20%. Lemmy was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 1 topic tag (reddit), 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 | Reddit-Enhancement-Suite | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 15K | ★ 4.5K |
| License | AGPL-3.0 | GPL-3.0 |
| Written in | Rust | JavaScript |
| Last push | 2026-11-02 | 2026-11-01 |
| Forks | ⑂ 973 | ⑂ 895 |
| 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 Reddit-Enhancement-Suite if
- You want the Reddit-Enhancement-Suite feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the GPL-3.0 license terms
- Your stack matches JavaScript
- You evaluated both and Reddit-Enhancement-Suite 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 Reddit-Enhancement-Suite
Reddit Enhancement Suite Please read this post before continuing. Reddit Enhancement Suite (RES) is a suite of modules that enhances your Reddit browsing experience. For general documentation, visit the Reddit Enhancement Suite Wiki. Introduction Hi there! Thanks for checking out RES on GitHub. A few important notes: 1. RES is licensed under GPLv3, which means you're technically free to do whatever you wish in terms of redistribution as long as you maintain GPLv3 licensing. However, I ask out of courtesy that should you choose to release your own, separate distribution of RES, you please name it something else…
read the full Reddit-Enhancement-Suite overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Lemmy or Reddit-Enhancement-Suite more popular?
Lemmy has 14,659 GitHub stars and Reddit-Enhancement-Suite has 4,545. Lemmy has the larger community by that measure.
Are Lemmy and Reddit-Enhancement-Suite free?
Both are open source. Lemmy is licensed under AGPL-3.0 and Reddit-Enhancement-Suite under GPL-3.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between Lemmy and Reddit-Enhancement-Suite?
Lemmy is written in Rust and Reddit-Enhancement-Suite in JavaScript. 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 Reddit-Enhancement-Suite?
Choose Lemmy if you want the larger community (14,659 stars) or its AGPL-3.0 licence terms. Choose Reddit-Enhancement-Suite if its feature set, stack or GPL-3.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.