head to head · open source
Lemmy vs Smithereen
Lemmy has 14,659 GitHub stars, 973 forks, 129 open issues and last shipped yesterday. Smithereen has 548 stars, 37 forks, 44 open issues and last shipped yesterday. Lemmy leads on adoption by 2,575% (14,659 vs 548 stars). Lemmy is written in Rust under AGPL-3.0; Smithereen is written in Java under Unlicense. Lemmy has attracted 7% as many forks as stars, Smithereen 7%. Lemmy 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 | Smithereen | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 15K | ★ 548 |
| License | AGPL-3.0 | Unlicense |
| Written in | Rust | Java |
| Last push | 2026-11-02 | 2026-11-02 |
| Forks | ⑂ 973 | ⑂ 37 |
| 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 Smithereen if
- You want the Smithereen feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the Unlicense license terms
- Your stack matches Java
- You evaluated both and Smithereen 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 Smithereen
Federated, ActivityPub compatible social network with friends, walls, and groups. If you have any questions or feedback, there's a Telegram chat you can join. Building/installation Running directly on your server Recommended: use the installation script 1. Install JRE or JDK 21 or newer from your distribution's package manager, here, here or here 2. Install MySQL. Note: on Debian, apt get install mysql server would instead install MariaDB, which is known to be incompatible with Smithereen. 3. Download a prebuilt bundle for your CPU architecture from the latest release to your server and unpack it somewhere 4…
read the full Smithereen overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Lemmy or Smithereen more popular?
Lemmy has 14,659 GitHub stars and Smithereen has 548. Lemmy has the larger community by that measure.
Are Lemmy and Smithereen free?
Both are open source. Lemmy is licensed under AGPL-3.0 and Smithereen under Unlicense. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between Lemmy and Smithereen?
Lemmy is written in Rust and Smithereen in Java. 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 Smithereen?
Choose Lemmy if you want the larger community (14,659 stars) or its AGPL-3.0 licence terms. Choose Smithereen if its feature set, stack or Unlicense licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.