Lemmy

App in the BluixApps catalog

What it is

Lemmy is a federated link aggregator — think Reddit, but over ActivityPub. Self-host your own instance, federate with others to form a network that's resistant to single-point control. Communities ("sublemmys") instead of subreddits, votes propagate across instances, profiles portable.

Built in Rust for performance. The Fediverse's answer to Reddit's API rebellion.

What it's for

  • Niche community hosting — a focused community without Reddit's policies
  • Federated discussion — connect to other Lemmy + Mastodon instances
  • Privacy-respecting forums — no algorithmic feed manipulation, no ads
  • Open governance — community moderators, transparent rules
  • API access — third-party apps and bots work natively

Who it's for

  • Community builders rejecting Reddit's API closure
  • Open-source projects hosting their own discussion forum
  • Privacy advocates moving off centralized platforms
  • Fediverse enthusiasts running federated nodes
  • Hosting providers offering a community platform to clients

Why teams pick Lemmy over alternatives

  • AGPL-3.0 — copyleft open-source
  • ActivityPub — federate with thousands of Mastodon, PeerTube, Lemmy nodes
  • Rust backend — fast, low resource consumption
  • Inferno UI — TypeScript front-end, customizable
  • Mature — battle-tested by lemmy.world, lemmy.ml (100k+ users)
  • API + mobile apps — Voyager, Jerboa, Mlem, Memmy

Integrations

  • Federation — ActivityPub with Lemmy + Mastodon + PeerTube + Mbin
  • pict-rs — image hosting service (bundled)
  • Mobile apps — Voyager (PWA), Jerboa (Android), Mlem (iOS)
  • OAuth — via reverse proxy + external IdP
  • Webhooks — for moderation tooling
  • Email — SMTP for notifications and password reset

Notable users & community

  • 13k+ GitHub stars
  • Powers lemmy.world (200k+ users post-Reddit-API-crisis)
  • Multi-lingual moderation tools
  • 3 dedicated mobile app developers
  • Active Matrix + Discord communities

Tips & operations

  • HTTPS required for federation — IP-only deployments can't federate; use DNS + cert
  • pict-rs — required for image uploads; configure persistent volume
  • Federation key signing — generated on first start; back up the config
  • Postgres tuning — busy instances need shared_buffers + work_mem tuned
  • Moderation tooling — bots/scripts for spam mitigation are essential at scale
  • Defederation policy — document your stance on hate-speech instances early

What we ship in BluixApps

  • Docker stack: lemmy + lemmy-ui + Postgres 16 + pict-rs
  • Pinned dessalines/lemmy:0.19.5
  • Auto-generated DB password + JWT secret + pict-rs API key
  • Port 1236 (HTTP), reverse-proxy + HTTPS needed for production federation
  • Persistent volumes for postgres + pict-rs media
  • Install report covering first-user setup
  • Backup hook covers postgres + pict-rs data
Read this app's deep dive on bluix.app ↗

Get this app — pick a BluixApps plan

Same catalog. Scaling tenant isolation, white-label and support tier.

TierTenantsCatalogSupportWhite-labelMonthly
Stacks119 curated stacksStandard$19/moDetailDeploy
Starter10Full catalogStandard+$15–25/mo$49/moDetailDeploy
Pro25Full catalogPriority bugfix+$15–25/mo$149/moDetailDeploy
Growth100Full catalogPriority bugfix+$15–25/mo$349/moDetailDeploy
Scale500Full catalog7-day window+$15–25/mo$799/moDetailDeploy
EnterpriseUnlimitedFull catalogPriority 7-dayBundled$1,499/moDetailDeploy

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