head to head · open source
Pixelfed vs talkyard
Pixelfed has 7,105 GitHub stars, 881 forks, 116 open issues and last shipped yesterday. talkyard has 1,812 stars, 129 forks, 127 open issues and last shipped 2 months ago. Pixelfed leads on adoption by 292% (7,105 vs 1,812 stars). Pixelfed is written in PHP under AGPL-3.0; talkyard is written in TypeScript under AGPL-3.0. Pixelfed has attracted 12% as many forks as stars, talkyard 7%. 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 | talkyard | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 7.1K | ★ 1.8K |
| License | AGPL-3.0 | AGPL-3.0 |
| Written in | PHP | TypeScript |
| Last push | 2026-09-19 | 2026-07-13 |
| Forks | ⑂ 881 | ⑂ 129 |
| 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 talkyard if
- You want the talkyard feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the AGPL-3.0 license terms
- Your stack matches TypeScript
- You evaluated both and talkyard 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 talkyard
Talkyard is a community discussion platform written in TypeScript and licensed under AGPL 3.0. It describes itself as forum software with chat and anonymous comments, and its topics connect it to StackOverflow style questions and answers, Slack style chat, Discourse style forums, Reddit style voting, and Disqus style blog comments.
read the full talkyard overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Pixelfed or talkyard more popular?
Pixelfed has 7,105 GitHub stars and talkyard has 1,812. Pixelfed has the larger community by that measure.
Are Pixelfed and talkyard free?
Both are open source. Pixelfed is licensed under AGPL-3.0 and talkyard under AGPL-3.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between Pixelfed and talkyard?
Pixelfed is written in PHP and talkyard in TypeScript. 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 talkyard?
Choose Pixelfed if you want the larger community (7,105 stars) or its AGPL-3.0 licence terms. Choose talkyard if its feature set, stack or AGPL-3.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.