Lemmy

Federated, open-source Reddit alternative with communities, voting and threaded comments.

Open sourceSelf-hostableSocial networks

Verified facts: 4 of 4
Alternatives ranked: 4
Approved reviews: 0
Visits sent from here: 0

About Lemmy

Lemmy is a link-aggregation and discussion platform that works much like Reddit: communities for topics, posts that are upvoted or downvoted, and threaded comment discussions. The difference is that it is decentralised. Hundreds of independently run servers, known collectively as the Lemmyverse, federate with each other over ActivityPub, so an account on one server can join communities hosted on others, and Mastodon users can interact with Lemmy posts too. There is no company behind it, no advertising and no user tracking; development is funded by donations, and moderation logs are public. It is written in Rust and light enough to self-host on a small machine. Lemmy is free and open source under the AGPL, and dozens of third-party apps exist for iPhone, Android, desktop and web. It grew sharply after Reddit's 2023 API changes, but communities are smaller and server choice and defederation can be confusing.

Best for: Reddit users who want community discussion without ads or a single corporate owner.

What works

Familiar Reddit-style voting and threads
No ads or tracking; moderation logs are public
Lightweight and self-hostable

Why people leave

Much smaller communities than Reddit
Server choice and defederation confuse newcomers
Relies on third-party apps for mobile

Top Lemmy alternatives

See all 4

1
Reddit
Far larger communities on almost every topic.
66.5
2Pi
PieFed
A fediverse forum compatible with Lemmy, with extra filtering and moderation tools.
62.6
3
Mbin
Mixes Lemmy-style threads with microblogging on the fediverse.
59.6
4
Discord
Real-time chat for communities that prefer conversation to threads.
51.2

Why people left Lemmy

In reviewers' own words, from reviews of the apps they moved to. These are their opinions, not ours.

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Lemmy: common questions

Is Lemmy free?

Yes. Lemmy is free, open-source software that you can host yourself.

Is Lemmy open source?

Yes. The source code is on GitHub at LemmyNet/lemmy. You can also run it on your own server.

What platforms does Lemmy run on?

Lemmy is available for Web, iOS, Android and Self-hosted.

What are the best alternatives to Lemmy?

The highest-ranked Lemmy alternatives right now are Reddit, PieFed and Mbin. See the full ranked list for pricing, platforms and verified facts.

See all 4 Lemmy alternatives

Lemmy facts

4 of 4 verified

License: AGPL-3.0; Checked Oct 25, 2026github.com(opens source in a new tab); “License: AGPL-3.0 (GNU Affero General Public License v3.0).”
Ads and tracking: None; Checked Oct 25, 2026join-lemmy.org(opens source in a new tab); “There is no profit motive, no advertising and no user tracking.”
Self-hosting: Yes, runs on a Raspberry Pi; Checked Oct 25, 2026join-lemmy.org(opens source in a new tab); “Resource usage is very low thanks to Rust, so it can run on a small Raspberry Pi or alongside other services.”
Apps: iOS, Android, desktop and web; Checked Oct 25, 2026join-lemmy.org(opens source in a new tab); “There are apps for iOS, Android, Desktop and Web.”