head to head · open source
Lemmy vs social-network
Lemmy has 14,659 GitHub stars, 973 forks, 129 open issues and last shipped yesterday. social-network has 637 stars, 135 forks, 41 open issues and last shipped 1.1 years ago. Lemmy leads on adoption by 2,201% (14,659 vs 637 stars). Lemmy is written in Rust under AGPL-3.0; social-network is written in JavaScript under MIT. Lemmy has attracted 7% as many forks as stars, social-network 21%. 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 | social-network | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 15K | ★ 637 |
| License | AGPL-3.0 | MIT |
| Written in | Rust | JavaScript |
| Last push | 2026-11-02 | 2025-10-15 |
| Forks | ⑂ 973 | ⑂ 135 |
| 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-network if
- You want the social-network feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches JavaScript
- You evaluated both and social-network 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 social-network
social network Mini social network that I made as my first web app project. Demo social network Screenshots Gif Link to a full video Video Built With React A JavaScript library for building user interfaces Redux State managment Semantic UI React UI Socket.io Used for realtime features Node Used for backend Mongodb Database Features Like posts, comments, replies See likes for posts, comments, replies Follow, unfollow Update user information Search users Tag people on post and in comments with autocomplete Send verification email Pagination for home feed, user profile, hashtag page, location page, notifications…
read the full social-network overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Lemmy or social-network more popular?
Lemmy has 14,659 GitHub stars and social-network has 637. Lemmy has the larger community by that measure.
Are Lemmy and social-network free?
Both are open source. Lemmy is licensed under AGPL-3.0 and social-network under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between Lemmy and social-network?
Lemmy is written in Rust and social-network 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 social-network?
Choose Lemmy if you want the larger community (14,659 stars) or its AGPL-3.0 licence terms. Choose social-network if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.