head to head · open source
owncast vs Pixelfed
owncast has 11,543 GitHub stars, 1,180 forks, 165 open issues and last shipped 2 days ago. Pixelfed has 7,105 stars, 881 forks, 116 open issues and last shipped yesterday. owncast leads on adoption by 62% (11,543 vs 7,105 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 12%. 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 | 2026-09-18 | 2026-09-19 |
| Forks | ⑂ 1.2K | ⑂ 881 |
| 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
Owncast is an open source, self hosted, single user live video streaming and chat server written in Go, with a React frontend, released under the MIT license. It positions itself as a way to run your own live streams in a style similar to the large mainstream streaming services, while keeping complete ownership over your content, interface, moderation, and audience. The project lives in the fediverse: its topic list covers ActivityPub, federation, and decentralized networking, placing it alongside other federated social software rather than inside a proprietary platform.
read the full owncast overview →
About Pixelfed
Pixelfed is an open source, ad free photo sharing platform written in PHP and released under the AGPL 3.0 license. It is built on the Laravel framework and lives in the fediverse, the federated social web, communicating with other servers through the ActivityPub protocol. The project describes itself as photo sharing "the way it should be," letting casual shots and creative photography find an audience without algorithmic barriers.
read the full Pixelfed overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is owncast or Pixelfed more popular?
owncast has 11,543 GitHub stars and Pixelfed has 7,105. 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 (11,543 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose Pixelfed if its feature set, stack or AGPL-3.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.