head to head · open source
Pixelfed vs praw
Pixelfed has 7,105 GitHub stars, 881 forks, 116 open issues and last shipped yesterday. praw has 4,254 stars, 501 forks, 0 open issues and last shipped 2 days ago. Pixelfed leads on adoption by 67% (7,105 vs 4,254 stars). Pixelfed is written in PHP under AGPL-3.0; praw is written in Python under BSD-2-Clause. Pixelfed has attracted 12% as many forks as stars, praw 12%. Pixelfed 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
| Pixelfed | praw | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 7.1K | ★ 4.3K |
| License | AGPL-3.0 | BSD-2-Clause |
| Written in | PHP | Python |
| Last push | 2026-09-19 | 2026-09-18 |
| Forks | ⑂ 881 | ⑂ 501 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick Pixelfed if
- You weight community size — 7.1K stars and counting
- You want the AGPL-3.0 license terms
- Your stack matches PHP
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick praw if
- You want the praw feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the BSD-2-Clause license terms
- Your stack matches Python
- You evaluated both and praw fits your workflow better
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 →
About praw
PRAW is the Python Reddit API Wrapper, a Python package for simple access to Reddit's API. It lives in the Python ecosystem and is classified under community and social networking tooling. The project uses the BSD 2 Clause license and has a sixteen year repository age, with a last push date of 2026 09 14. The repository lists 4254 stars and 500 forks.
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Frequently asked questions
Is Pixelfed or praw more popular?
Pixelfed has 7,105 GitHub stars and praw has 4,254. Pixelfed has the larger community by that measure.
Are Pixelfed and praw free?
Both are open source. Pixelfed is licensed under AGPL-3.0 and praw under BSD-2-Clause. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between Pixelfed and praw?
Pixelfed is written in PHP and praw 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, Pixelfed or praw?
Choose Pixelfed if you want the larger community (7,105 stars) or its AGPL-3.0 licence terms. Choose praw if its feature set, stack or BSD-2-Clause licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.