head to head · open source
Lemmy vs sharer.js
Lemmy has 14,659 GitHub stars, 973 forks, 129 open issues and last shipped yesterday. sharer.js has 2,096 stars, 202 forks, 1 open issues and last shipped 20 days ago. Lemmy leads on adoption by 599% (14,659 vs 2,096 stars). Lemmy is written in Rust under AGPL-3.0; sharer.js is written in JavaScript under MIT. Lemmy has attracted 7% as many forks as stars, sharer.js 10%. 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 | sharer.js | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 15K | ★ 2.1K |
| License | AGPL-3.0 | MIT |
| Written in | Rust | JavaScript |
| Last push | 2026-11-02 | 2026-10-14 |
| Forks | ⑂ 973 | ⑂ 202 |
| 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 sharer.js if
- You want the sharer.js feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches JavaScript
- You evaluated both and sharer.js 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 sharer.js
sharer.js Using Sharer.js on your project? Let me know! Sharer.js is a very tiny JS library to create custom social share components on DOM elements for your website. No dependencies. Documentation Checkout the docs page for more info about installing and usage.
read the full sharer.js overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Lemmy or sharer.js more popular?
Lemmy has 14,659 GitHub stars and sharer.js has 2,096. Lemmy has the larger community by that measure.
Are Lemmy and sharer.js free?
Both are open source. Lemmy is licensed under AGPL-3.0 and sharer.js under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between Lemmy and sharer.js?
Lemmy is written in Rust and sharer.js 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 sharer.js?
Choose Lemmy if you want the larger community (14,659 stars) or its AGPL-3.0 licence terms. Choose sharer.js if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.