Lemmy: Open-Source Federated Community Platform for Discussion and Sharing

What is Lemmy?

Lemmy is an open-source, federated community platform similar to Reddit but with emphasis on freedom, privacy, and decentralization. Built with Rust for performance and safety, Lemmy enables communities to form around topics with moderation and voting without algorithmic feed manipulation. Over 50,000 active users participate in Lemmy communities.

Unlike Reddit ($0 free with surveillance) where all activity is tracked and content is controlled by Reddit, Lemmy users own their content and choose their instance. Complete decentralization prevents platform-wide censorship or unwanted content recommendations.

Lemmy serves as the community platform for discussion and sharing. Communities form around topics and interests. Users vote on content quality. Moderation preserves community quality.

Key Features and Capabilities

Communities and Posts

• Communities: Create communities around topics
• Posts: Submit text, links, and images
• Comments: Discuss posts in comment threads
• Sorting: Sort posts by new, hot, top, and trending
• Voting: Upvote and downvote posts and comments
• Multis: Create custom feeds from multiple communities

Moderation

• Community Mods: Volunteer moderators manage communities
• Posting Rules: Communities define posting rules and requirements
• Removal: Remove rule-breaking posts and comments
• Banning: Ban users from communities
• Reports: Report problematic content for mod review

Federation

• ActivityPub Protocol: Federate with other platforms
• Cross-Instance Communities: Subscribe to communities from other instances
• Seamless Interaction: Interact across federated network

System Requirements

Server Requirements

• OS: Linux (Ubuntu 18.04+, Debian 10+)
• Rust: For application runtime
• PostgreSQL: 10+ for database
• RAM: 2GB minimum, 4GB+ recommended
• Storage: 20GB+ for content and media

Advantages

• Decentralized: No central Reddit-like control
• Open Source: Community-driven development
• No Algorithms: Chronological or hot ranking without manipulation
• Privacy: No tracking of user activity
• Performance: Built in Rust for speed and reliability
• Moderation: Communities control their own rules

Pricing and Licensing

Software Cost: Completely free and open-source under AGPL License