Notes 
Lemmy is a free, open-source link aggregator and discussion forum for the fediverse, built as a self-hostable alternative to Reddit. Communities live on independent servers that federate over ActivityPub, so you can subscribe to them and post from whichever instance you join.
Reviewed by Marco Wollank
Lemmy
join-lemmy.org/instances 4.9 (7)
Rate Lemmy: No account needed
Threat level
Hardened
A hardened pick. Worth the effort once you have chosen to shrink your footprint on purpose. Enough for most people. Threat levels
Our take
The most active Reddit-style corner of the fediverse, and the realistic landing spot if you want threaded communities without one company owning the platform or mining your activity. The catch is scale and fragmentation: communities are smaller and scattered across instances, and the server you pick shapes what you see, since some instances block others. Pick Lemmy if you want self-governed forums and will help seed the communities you miss; skip it if you need Reddit’s sheer breadth on day one.
GitHub at a glance
LemmyNet/lemmy AGPL-3.0 activitypubchatfediverselemmylink-aggregatorredditrust
Stars
14,662
+12 this week
Forks
974
117 watching
Last commit
today
healthy
Latest release
0.19.21
8d ago, 91 total
Star history
Issues
97% closed
114
open
3,239
closed
+18 / -16
opened / closed, last 4 weeks
Opened vs closed, last 12 weeks
Commits, last 26 weeks
137 commits, active 23 of 26 weeks
260 contributors since Feb 2019
Languages
- Rust 78.6%
- PLpgSQL 13.4%
- TypeScript 6.8%
- Other 1.2%
Updated daily from the GitHub API. Star tracking since Jun 22, 2026.
Website at a glance
join-lemmy.org
D score 30
Weak website security headers
Graded by Mozilla HTTP Observatory, tested 4d ago
Inspect this site yourself
Measures the security configuration of the tool's own website, not the privacy of the product itself. A strong tool can still score low here.
Lemmy alternatives
Lemmy license, in plain English
AGPL-3.0 Strong copyleft · network
Free to use, even commercially. Changes must be published under the same license, and running a modified version as a network service counts as distributing it.
Permits
- Commercial use
- Modification
- Distribution
- Patent use
- Private use
Requires
- Disclose source
- Network use is distribution
- Same license
- State changes
- License and copyright notice
Does not provide
- Liability cover
- Warranty
Why it matters: The network clause is the point. Anyone who runs a modified version as a hosted service has to publish those changes, so the code handling your data stays inspectable. This is why privacy-first projects reach for AGPL.
Plain-language summary of the project's license, not legal advice. Read the full text for the exact terms.