What it does
Lemmy is free, self-hosted software for link sharing and threaded discussions across federated communities. Readers can vote on posts, follow topics and use mobile or web clients. A local account is required to administer a server; hosting and each community's admission rules are separate.
Lemmy gives a server several topic communities while letting members join discussions hosted elsewhere. Its open-source application can be deployed with Docker or Ansible, and RSS feeds provide another way to follow activity.
Set server rules, then add any community-specific rules. Moderators act within their community; administrators have authority across the instance. A community ban leaves the rest of the site accessible.
Open a post or comment's three-dot menu to lock comments, remove content or pin a post. Reversible actions use that same menu. Members report problems with the flag icon, and the moderation log is linked at the page bottom.
Moderators can work from another server, but administrators need a local account. Operators can block individual servers or allow federation only with selected ones.
Strengths
- Community moderators have narrower authority than server administrators
- Public logs make moderation actions inspectable
Watch out for
- Independent servers can apply conflicting community rules
Best for
- Operators hosting topic-based discussion communities with delegated moderation
Sources
- GitHub - LemmyNet/lemmy: 🐀 A decentralised discussion platform for communities. · GitHub (Oct 26, 2026)
- GNU AFFERO GENERAL PUBLIC LICENSE (Oct 26, 2026)
- Release 0.19.20 · LemmyNet/lemmy · GitHub (Oct 26, 2026)
- Lemmy: decentralized discussion communities (Oct 27, 2026)
- Lemmy moderation (Oct 27, 2026)