head to head · open source
Lemmy vs writefreely
Lemmy has 14,659 GitHub stars, 973 forks, 129 open issues and last shipped yesterday. writefreely has 5,284 stars, 406 forks, 108 open issues and last shipped 2 days ago. Lemmy leads on adoption by 177% (14,659 vs 5,284 stars). Lemmy is written in Rust under AGPL-3.0; writefreely is written in Go under AGPL-3.0. Lemmy has attracted 7% as many forks as stars, writefreely 8%. Lemmy was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 1 topic tag (activitypub), 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 | writefreely | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 15K | ★ 5.3K |
| License | AGPL-3.0 | AGPL-3.0 |
| Written in | Rust | Go |
| Last push | 2026-11-02 | 2026-11-01 |
| Forks | ⑂ 973 | ⑂ 406 |
| 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 writefreely if
- You want the writefreely feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the AGPL-3.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Go
- You evaluated both and writefreely 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 writefreely
WriteFreely is a clean, minimalist publishing platform made for writers. Start a blog, share knowledge within your organization, or build a community around the shared act of writing. Try the writing experience Find an instance Features Made for writing Built on a plain, auto saving editor, WriteFreely gives you a distraction free writing environment. Once published, your words are front and center, and easy to read. A connected community Start writing together, publicly or privately. Connect with other communities, whether running WriteFreely, Plume, or other ActivityPub powered software. And bring members on…
read the full writefreely overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Lemmy or writefreely more popular?
Lemmy has 14,659 GitHub stars and writefreely has 5,284. Lemmy has the larger community by that measure.
Are Lemmy and writefreely free?
Both are open source. Lemmy is licensed under AGPL-3.0 and writefreely under AGPL-3.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between Lemmy and writefreely?
Lemmy is written in Rust and writefreely in Go. 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 writefreely?
Choose Lemmy if you want the larger community (14,659 stars) or its AGPL-3.0 licence terms. Choose writefreely if its feature set, stack or AGPL-3.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.