head to head · open source
Lemmy vs SCrawler
Lemmy has 14,599 GitHub stars, 966 forks, 129 open issues and last shipped 2 days ago. SCrawler has 2,174 stars, 154 forks, 2 open issues and last shipped 1 months ago. Lemmy leads on adoption by 572% (14,599 vs 2,174 stars). Lemmy is written in Rust under AGPL-3.0; SCrawler is written in Visual Basic .NET under GPL-3.0. Lemmy has attracted 7% as many forks as stars, SCrawler 7%. Lemmy was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee.
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 | SCrawler | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 15K | ★ 2.2K |
| License | AGPL-3.0 | GPL-3.0 |
| Written in | Rust | Visual Basic .NET |
| Last push | 2026-09-16 | 2026-08-07 |
| Forks | ⑂ 966 | ⑂ 154 |
| 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 SCrawler if
- You want the SCrawler feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the GPL-3.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Visual Basic .NET
- You evaluated both and SCrawler 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 SCrawler
SCrawler is a GPL 3.0 licensed, Visual Basic .NET media downloader and crawler that pulls photos and videos from user profiles and feeds across social networks and adult platforms, aimed at individuals who want a local archive of media they already have access to.
read the full SCrawler overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Lemmy or SCrawler more popular?
Lemmy has 14,599 GitHub stars and SCrawler has 2,174. Lemmy has the larger community by that measure.
Are Lemmy and SCrawler free?
Both are open source. Lemmy is licensed under AGPL-3.0 and SCrawler under GPL-3.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between Lemmy and SCrawler?
Lemmy is written in Rust and SCrawler in Visual Basic .NET. 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 SCrawler?
Choose Lemmy if you want the larger community (14,599 stars) or its AGPL-3.0 licence terms. Choose SCrawler if its feature set, stack or GPL-3.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.