head to head · open source
Pixelfed vs writefreely
Pixelfed has 7,105 GitHub stars, 881 forks, 116 open issues and last shipped yesterday. writefreely has 5,254 stars, 398 forks, 108 open issues and last shipped 2 days ago. Pixelfed leads on adoption by 35% (7,105 vs 5,254 stars). Pixelfed is written in PHP under AGPL-3.0; writefreely is written in Go under AGPL-3.0. Pixelfed has attracted 12% as many forks as stars, writefreely 8%. Pixelfed was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 2 topic tags (activitypub, federation), 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
| Pixelfed | writefreely | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 7.1K | ★ 5.3K |
| License | AGPL-3.0 | AGPL-3.0 |
| Written in | PHP | Go |
| Last push | 2026-09-19 | 2026-09-18 |
| Forks | ⑂ 881 | ⑂ 398 |
| 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 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 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 writefreely
WriteFreely is a clean, minimalist publishing platform made for writers, released under the AGPL 3.0 license and written in Go. It belongs to the fediverse: an ecosystem of federated publishing and social software that speaks ActivityPub, the same protocol used by Plume and other ActivityPub powered applications. An instance can be a single writer's blog, a shared internal knowledge base inside an organization, or a community built around the shared act of writing.
read the full writefreely overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Pixelfed or writefreely more popular?
Pixelfed has 7,105 GitHub stars and writefreely has 5,254. Pixelfed has the larger community by that measure.
Are Pixelfed and writefreely free?
Both are open source. Pixelfed is licensed under AGPL-3.0 and writefreely under AGPL-3.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between Pixelfed and writefreely?
Pixelfed is written in PHP 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, Pixelfed or writefreely?
Choose Pixelfed if you want the larger community (7,105 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.