head to head · open source
Lemmy vs URS
Lemmy has 14,599 GitHub stars, 966 forks, 129 open issues and last shipped 2 days ago. URS has 1,025 stars, 124 forks, 8 open issues and last shipped 2 months ago. Lemmy leads on adoption by 1,324% (14,599 vs 1,025 stars). Lemmy is written in Rust under AGPL-3.0; URS is written in Python under MIT. Lemmy has attracted 7% as many forks as stars, URS 12%. 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 | URS | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 15K | ★ 1.0K |
| License | AGPL-3.0 | MIT |
| Written in | Rust | Python |
| Last push | 2026-09-16 | 2026-07-11 |
| Forks | ⑂ 966 | ⑂ 124 |
| 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 URS if
- You want the URS feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches Python
- You evaluated both and URS 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 URS
URS (Universal Reddit Scraper) is a free, MIT licensed Python command line tool for scraping, archiving, and livestreaming Reddit, aimed at researchers, data scientists, archivists, and OSINT analysts who need structured local copies of subreddit and redditor activity.
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Frequently asked questions
Is Lemmy or URS more popular?
Lemmy has 14,599 GitHub stars and URS has 1,025. Lemmy has the larger community by that measure.
Are Lemmy and URS free?
Both are open source. Lemmy is licensed under AGPL-3.0 and URS under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between Lemmy and URS?
Lemmy is written in Rust and URS in Python. 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 URS?
Choose Lemmy if you want the larger community (14,599 stars) or its AGPL-3.0 licence terms. Choose URS if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.