head to head · open source
owncast vs Pixelfed
owncast has 11,644 GitHub stars, 1,195 forks, 165 open issues and last shipped 10 days ago. Pixelfed has 7,138 stars, 896 forks, 116 open issues and last shipped yesterday. owncast leads on adoption by 63% (11,644 vs 7,138 stars). owncast is written in Go under MIT; Pixelfed is written in PHP under AGPL-3.0. owncast has attracted 10% as many forks as stars, Pixelfed 13%. Pixelfed was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 3 topic tags (activitypub, federation, 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
| owncast | Pixelfed | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 12K | ★ 7.1K |
| License | MIT | AGPL-3.0 |
| Written in | Go | PHP |
| Last push | 2026-10-26 | 2026-11-04 |
| Forks | ⑂ 1.2K | ⑂ 896 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick owncast if
- You weight community size — 12K stars and counting
- You want the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches Go
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick Pixelfed if
- You want the Pixelfed 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 Pixelfed fits your workflow better
About owncast
Take control over your content and stream it yourself. Explore the docs » View Demo · FAQ · Report Bug · Report Security Issue Table of Contents 📒 About the Project 🚀 Getting Started 👨💻 Use with your broadcasting software 🛠 Building from source 🚨 Important note about source code and the develop branch 🗄️ Backend ⚛️ Frontend 👏 Contributing 💵 Donors Security 📝 License Contact About The Project Owncast is an open source, self hosted, decentralized, single user live video streaming and chat server for running your own live streams similar in style to the large mainstream options. It offers complete…
read the full owncast overview →
About Pixelfed
Introduction Photo sharing the way it should be. Pixelfed lets your casual shots and creative photography find their audience naturally, without algorithmic barriers. Join millions of people sharing across the fediverse. Official Documentation Documentation for Pixelfed can be found on the Pixelfed documentation website. Run on YunoHost Pixelfed app for YunoHost. See the package source code License Pixelfed is open sourced software licensed under the AGPL license. Communication The ways you can communicate on the project are below. Before interacting, please read through the Code Of Conduct. Mastodon…
read the full Pixelfed overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is owncast or Pixelfed more popular?
owncast has 11,644 GitHub stars and Pixelfed has 7,138. owncast has the larger community by that measure.
Are owncast and Pixelfed free?
Both are open source. owncast is licensed under MIT and Pixelfed under AGPL-3.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between owncast and Pixelfed?
owncast is written in Go and Pixelfed 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, owncast or Pixelfed?
Choose owncast if you want the larger community (11,644 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose Pixelfed if its feature set, stack or AGPL-3.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.