head to head · open source
Lemmy vs social
Lemmy has 14,605 GitHub stars, 966 forks, 129 open issues and last shipped yesterday. social has 503 stars, 59 forks, 24 open issues and last shipped yesterday. Lemmy leads on adoption by 2,804% (14,605 vs 503 stars). Lemmy is written in Rust under AGPL-3.0; social is written in PHP under AGPL-3.0. Lemmy has attracted 7% as many forks as stars, social 12%. social 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 | social | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 15K | ★ 503 |
| License | AGPL-3.0 | AGPL-3.0 |
| Written in | Rust | PHP |
| Last push | 2026-09-21 | 2026-09-21 |
| Forks | ⑂ 966 | ⑂ 59 |
| 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 social if
- You want the social 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 social 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 social
Nextcloud Social is an AGPL 3.0 Nextcloud app that turns an existing Nextcloud instance into a Fediverse server, giving every user a @[email protected] identity that people on Mastodon, Pixelfed, PeerTube, GoToSocial and Akkoma can follow, mention and reply to.
read the full social overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Lemmy or social more popular?
Lemmy has 14,605 GitHub stars and social has 503. Lemmy has the larger community by that measure.
Are Lemmy and social free?
Both are open source. Lemmy is licensed under AGPL-3.0 and social under AGPL-3.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between Lemmy and social?
Lemmy is written in Rust and social 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 social?
Choose Lemmy if you want the larger community (14,605 stars) or its AGPL-3.0 licence terms. Choose social if its feature set, stack or AGPL-3.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.