#81 in Collaboration & CommunicationUpdated 2026-08

Lemmy

by Lemmy · Decentralised, self-hostable discussion platform for communities

21 — BenchRank score out of 100

Homepage

Visit website See full Collaboration & Communication ranking

Overview

Lemmy is an open source, decentralised discussion platform with upvotes, downvotes and threaded comments. Hundreds of interconnected servers are run by different operators, and anyone can run their own via Docker or Ansible. It is used through a web interface or through third-party apps for iOS, Android and desktop built on its open API.

Best for: Communities that want an ad-free, self-hostable Reddit-style discussion forum they run themselves
Pricing: No prices are shown; the software is open source and the project states development is funded solely by donations.
Runs on: Self-hosted

Strengths and trade-offs

Strengths

No advertising, tracking or secret ranking algorithms
Self-host via Docker or Ansible; runs on a Raspberry Pi
Over a dozen iOS, Android, desktop and web apps, plus an open API
Interface offered in more than 30 languages

Trade-offs

You must pick one of hundreds of servers or run and maintain your own
Funded solely by donations, with no company behind it for support
No hosted commercial option shown; you rely on volunteer-run servers

How this score is made up

Each dimension is scored out of 100 and combined into the headline score using fixed weights.

MCP support: 0 out of 100
Documentation: 45 out of 100
Agent friendliness: 38 out of 100
Changelog: 0 out of 100
Marketing site structure: 35 out of 100
Operational trust: 0 out of 100

Measured, but not part of the score

Useful to know, but not a mark for or against the product — so these do not affect the ranking.

Openness: 65 out of 100
Maintenance: 100 out of 100

This doesn’t look right — report a problem with Lemmy’s score

Alternatives in Collaboration & Communication

Ranked 1
90.8 — BenchRank score out of 100
Novu
Novu · Open-source notification infrastructure for multi-channel product messaging
Best for: Development teams adding multi-channel product notifications to a web or mobile app.
Ranked 2
79.4 — BenchRank score out of 100
Plane
Plane · Project management, wiki and AI agents in one workspace
Best for: Teams leaving Jira or Linear that want projects, docs and AI agents in one self-hostable tool
Ranked 3
78.5 — BenchRank score out of 100
AgentMail
AgentMail · Email inbox API that gives AI agents their own addresses
Best for: Developers giving AI agents their own email inboxes for two-way threads, attachments and webhooks.