[opensourcedex]

Lemmy is a free, open source social networking project written in Rust and released under AGPL-3.0. It has 14,599 GitHub stars, 966 forks and 129 open issues, and was last pushed 38 hours ago. On this registry it ranks #5 of 44 tracked projects in Social Networking, with 5 head-to-head comparisons available. It gained 5 stars over the last 6 tracked days.

What is Lemmy?

What it is

Lemmy is a link aggregator and forum platform for the Fediverse, written in Rust and released under the AGPL-3.0 license. It supports communities where users subscribe to forums, post links and discussions, vote, and comment. Each server can operate independently while remaining federated through ActivityPub, so users on one server can interact with users and communities on other servers.

The project addresses the problem of link-aggregator and discussion communities depending on one centralized platform. It is presented as a self-hostable, decentralized alternative to Reddit, Lobste.rs, and Hacker News, while preserving the familiar workflow of posting, voting, and commenting. Each server can set its own moderation policy, with site administrators and community moderators appointed by the operators.

Key capabilities

  • Posts can include a title plus self text, a URL, both, or neither, and users can upload images in posts and comments.
  • Comment threads update live and show full positive and negative vote scores, like the old Reddit display.
  • The interface supports internationalization, user tagging with @, community tagging with !, emoji autocomplete, avatars, private messaging, and light, dark, and solarized themes.
  • Notifications cover comment replies and user tags, and the README states that notifications can be sent by email.
  • RSS and Atom feeds are available for All, Subscribed, Inbox, User, and Community.
  • Cross-posting support and similar-post search help users find related discussions when creating new posts.
  • Moderation tools include public moderation logs, sticky posts, locking posts, and separate site-wide admins and community moderators who can appoint other moderators.

Who uses it and how

  • Community operators run a Lemmy server for their members while allowing those members to subscribe to forums on other servers.
  • Users join a Lemmy instance with only a username and password, then subscribe to communities across the Fediverse.
  • Moderators enforce local policies, appoint additional moderators, lock or sticky posts, and review public moderation logs.
  • People who prefer mobile access use the mobile-friendly interface, while readers can follow feeds through RSS or Atom output.

Getting started

The README points to documented Docker and Ansible deployment methods, including the dessalines/lemmy Docker image, and links to join-lemmy.org for administration documentation.

When to use it — and when not to

Lemmy fits communities that want a self-hosted, federated alternative to Reddit-style link aggregators and are prepared to operate their own server and moderation policies. The README lists Docker and Ansible deployment paths, but it does not state whether a hosted option is provided, so operators should expect to manage their own instance. The federation model requires ActivityPub and cross-server moderation, and the feature set should be reviewed in the documentation before operating a server.

project readme (upstream, from github) — read inline

GitHub tag (latest SemVer) Build Status GitHub issues Docker Pulls Translation status License GitHub stars

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Lemmy

A link aggregator and forum for the fediverse.

Join Lemmy · Documentation · Matrix Chat · Report Bug · Request Feature · Releases · Code of Conduct

About The Project

Desktop Mobile
desktop mobile

Lemmy is similar to sites like Reddit, Lobste.rs, or Hacker News: you subscribe to forums you're interested in, post links and discussions, then vote, and comment on them. Behind the scenes, it is very different; anyone can easily run a server, and all these servers are federated (think email), and connected to the same universe, called the Fediverse.

For a link aggregator, this means a user registered on one server can subscribe to forums on any other server, and can have discussions with users registered elsewhere.

It is an easily self-hostable, decentralized alternative to Reddit and other link aggregators, outside of their corporate control and meddling.

Each Lemmy server can set its own moderation policy; appointing site-wide admins, and community moderators to keep out the trolls, and foster a healthy, non-toxic environment where all can feel comfortable contributing.

Why's it called Lemmy?

Built With

Features

  • Open source, AGPL License.
  • Self hostable, easy to deploy.
  • Clean, mobile-friendly interface.
    • Only a minimum of a username and password is required to sign up!
    • User avatar support.
    • Live-updating Comment threads.
    • Full vote scores (+/-) like old Reddit.
    • Themes, including light, dark, and solarized.
    • Emojis with autocomplete support. Start typing :
    • User tagging using @, Community tagging using !.
    • Integrated image uploading in both posts and comments.
    • A post can consist of a title and any combination of self text, a URL, or nothing else.
    • Notifications, on comment replies and when you're tagged.
      • Notifications can be sent via email.
      • Private messaging support.
    • i18n / internationalization support.
    • RSS / Atom feeds for All, Subscribed, Inbox, User, and Community.
  • Cross-posting support.
    • A similar post search when creating new posts. Great for question / answer communities.
  • Moderation abilities.
    • Public Moderation Logs.
    • Can sticky posts to the top of communities.
    • Both site admins, and community moderators, who can appoint other moderators.
    • Can lock, remove, and restore posts and comments.
    • Can ban and unban users from communities and the site.
    • Can transfer site and communities to others.
  • Can fully erase your data, replacing all posts and comments.
  • NSFW post / community support.
  • High performance.
    • Server is written in rust.
    • Supports arm64 / Raspberry Pi.

Installation

Lemmy Projects

Support / Donate

Lemmy is free, open-source software, meaning no advertising, monetizing, or venture capital, ever. Your donations directly support full-time development of the project.

Lemmy is made possible by a generous grant from the NLnet foundation.

Crypto

  • bitcoin: 1Hefs7miXS5ff5Ck5xvmjKjXf5242KzRtK
  • ethereum: 0x400c96c96acbC6E7B3B43B1dc1BB446540a88A01
  • monero: 41taVyY6e1xApqKyMVDRVxJ76sPkfZhALLTjRvVKpaAh2pBd4wv9RgYj1tSPrx8wc6iE1uWUfjtQdTmTy2FGMeChGVKPQuV

Contributing

Read the following documentation to setup the development environment and start coding:

When working on an issue or pull request, you can comment with any questions you may have so that maintainers can answer them. You can also join the Matrix Development Chat for general assistance.

Translations

Community

Code Mirrors

Credits

Logo made by Andy Cuccaro (@andycuccaro) under the CC-BY-SA 4.0 license.

Frequently asked questions

Is Lemmy free to use?

Lemmy is open source under the AGPL-3.0 licence. There is no licence fee and no seat count — you can self-host it or, where the project offers one, pay a vendor for a managed version instead.

What does Lemmy do?

Build your own federated discussion community

What is Lemmy written in?

Lemmy is primarily written in Rust. Its source is publicly available at https://github.com/lemmynet/lemmy, and it has 14,599 GitHub stars.