Lemmy
Platform · this deep dive is built from the official pages of the platform itself and of the tools that support it.
Overview
Lemmy is not a single site but a program and a protocol. The project describes itself as “a decentralized platform for community discussions”, and the documentation is more precise: “Lemmy is a self-hosted federated link aggregator and discussion forum”. The layout is close to Reddit: communities, posts with links or text, upvotes and downvotes, comment threads.
The difference is that there is no central operator. The site join-lemmy.org is the project's showcase and documentation, not a platform. The actual sites (“instances”) are run by different people, and each has its own rules. The documentation states this without hedging: “because Lemmy is decentralized, the platform has no single moderation team and no platform-level rules. Instead, each instance is responsible for creating and enforcing its own moderation policy”.
For marketing this means the question “can I advertise here” has no single answer. There is the project's answer — advertising does not exist in the platform as a phenomenon; and there is each instance's answer — its own set of rules in the sidebar. You will have to check both.
Who's here
The project shows the size of the network on its instance-picking page. On our check date it read: 484 servers and 35.3 thousand active users in the “Lemmyverse”, data as of 27 July 2026. These are the project's own counters, gathered by its own crawler; the method for counting an “active user” is not spelled out.
An individual instance can be measured precisely: each one serves statistics through an open interface. The developers' flagship instance lemmy.ml reported on our check date: 58,346 registered users, 210,516 posts, 1,061,712 comments, 4,779 communities; active over a day — 651, over a week — 1,230, over a month — 1,889, over half a year — 3,534. The gap between “registered” and “active over a month” here is more than thirtyfold.
Geography and languages. The filter on the instances page lists the countries of hosting: France, Austria, Canada, Germany, Finland, Norway, the United States, Portugal, the Netherlands, Denmark, the United Kingdom, Iceland, Sweden, Chile, New Zealand, Russia, Australia, and there is a filter by instance language on the same page. The project's interface is translated into more than thirty languages, and the list on the site includes Russian.
Getting started
The first step is choosing an instance, and the documentation asks you to take it calmly: “it is best to avoid very large and very small instances, but do not worry too much about this choice — you can always create an account on another instance later”.
The registration form is described field by field: a username (cannot be changed, unique within the instance), an email address (usually optional, but the administrator may make it mandatory), a password and a repeat of it. Then comes the thing that sets Lemmy apart from most platforms: the administrator may set an arbitrary question that has to be answered in order to create an account; this is often used against spam bots, and after submitting the form you will have to wait for the answer to be approved by hand. A captcha may be added on top.
How serious this is can be seen in a live example: on our check date the lemmy.ml instance ran in RequireApplication mode — registration by application only, and the text of the question asks you to explain why you came, how you heard about Lemmy and why you chose that particular handle. A company should budget for a manual review of the application.
Business accounts do not exist as a separate entity. There is a flag in the settings: “Bot Account” — turn it on if you use a script or a program to create posts automatically. Next to it sits the paired setting “show bot accounts”, which a reader can switch off: part of the audience simply will not see an honestly marked automated account.
What you can publish
Formats: a text post, a link, an image. The project lists built-in image uploading in posts and comments, avatar support, emoji with autocompletion, mentioning users through @ and communities through !, and marking material as NSFW.
Length and size limits are set by the instance, not by the program: the platform has no single ceiling, and the project's showcase does not publish a list of default values.
What is forbidden is also a question for the instance: every instance has a set of rules in its sidebar, and they apply to all local communities; individual communities may have their own rules that apply on top. The rules of different instances may directly contradict each other — for such cases administrators can block federation with specific instances or, to be safe, allow it only with explicitly listed ones.
The project's own code of conduct contains a clause that is rare for 2026: “the use of so-called artificial intelligence is permitted only with an explicit mention of it; moreover, all text and code produced by a language model must be checked by the author by hand before submission”. The same document says: “any spam, trolling, flaming, baiting and other attention-stealing behaviour is not welcome here”. Formally this code applies to the project's own sites, including lemmy.ml, not to the whole network.
How to grow
There is no recommendation algorithm in the usual sense, but the sorting modes are described openly: “Active” (the default) computes rank from the vote score and the time of the last comment with decay; “Hot” — the same, but by publication time; “Scaled” — like “Hot”, but with a boost for less active communities; “Controversial” — material with a large number of votes in both directions; “New”, “Old”, “Most Comments”, “New Comments” (raises a thread on a new reply, as on classic forums) and “Top” for the day, week, month, year and all time.
Votes are not anonymous, and this is stated plainly: instance administrators see the names of everyone who voted on a post or comment, moderators — within their own communities; individual votes are federated over the ActivityPub protocol together with the username, so other platforms are free to display them publicly. Inflating votes here is not merely forbidden — it is visible to the operators.
Advertising as a built-in product does not exist: “Lemmy is not controlled by any company. There is no profit motive, no advertising and no user tracking”. That means the only way a company can be present is to take part according to a particular instance's rules and, if those rules allow it, to run its own community.
The documentation writes about your own community separately: Lemmy can work as a blogging platform — it is enough to create a community and turn on the “only moderators can post” setting; then posts are created by you and by those you invite, while anyone can comment. Such a community can be read from other federation platforms and over RSS.
Path to monetization
Lemmy does not pay authors. The platform has no reward mechanisms — no share of ad revenue, no donations, no paid subscriptions; the project's money model is stated explicitly: development is done in the open and is funded exclusively by donations.
Earnings for an instance owner are not provided for by the program either: server costs are usually covered by donations from the administrator and the participants. Thresholds, statuses and payout geography simply do not exist here.
If you need to monetize an audience on Lemmy, the only route is to lead readers to your own paid platforms, while observing the instance's rules on links and self-promotion.
Tools and automation
Programmatic access is open: Lemmy has OpenAPI documentation and a JavaScript client for developers of apps and clients, working curl examples are given, and public instances for testing are listed: enterprise.lemmy.ml, ds9.lemmy.ml and voyager.lemmy.ml. You can check availability without registering: the instance serves the lemmy.ml statistics above in response to a simple request to /api/v3/site.
Reading feeds come as standard: RSS and Atom are available for “All”, “Subscribed”, “Inbox”, a user and a community. There are many apps and they are third-party: the project speaks of more than a dozen apps for iOS, Android, desktop systems and the web, and reminds you that developers can build their own tools through the open interface.
On rate limiting: a built-in limiter exists, and the documentation warns that if the reverse proxy does not pass the X-Real-IP and X-Forwarded-For headers, all actions will be counted against the proxy's IP address and the limiter will fire too early. The project's showcase does not publish default numeric values.
Technically, posting through the interface is possible, but the “Bot Account” marker and the rules of the particular instance will decide whether anyone sees those posts.
Limits and rules
- There are no common rules. Each instance writes its own moderation policy; the rules of two instances may contradict each other.
- The moderation hierarchy. A moderator is responsible for one community and can ban only within it; an administrator is responsible for the instance and only they can ban outright. The administrator's set of actions includes “Purge user” — complete deletion of a user together with all their posts and uploaded files.
- The moderation log. All moderator actions are recorded in a public mod log: the deletion of your post will not go unnoticed.
- Votes are visible to operators. Administrators and moderators see who voted.
- Registration may be by application. An example is lemmy.ml in
RequireApplicationmode. - Requirements for getting onto the instance list. For an instance to be shown on join-lemmy.org it must: federate with at least one instance from the list; have a site description and an icon; have registration applications enabled — “this helps prevent bots and trolls from spamming through your server across the federation”; have at least 5 users who posted or commented at least once in the past month; run the latest major version of Lemmy.
- AI disclosure. Material produced by a language model requires an explicit mention of that.
Who it's for
Suits projects that need a platform with no advertising and no algorithmic funnel: sorting here is described openly rather than guessed at. Suits technical and civic projects whose audience values open source and self-hosting.
Suits you as a way to run your own community that can be read from outside: the “only moderators post” mode plus RSS and federation give you a blog visible from other networks, with no hosting of your own.
Does not suit fast campaigns. The network is small — 35.3 thousand active users on 484 servers — and entry may run into a manual review of your application. Does not suit brand marketing “by default”: permission has to be established on each instance separately, and on many the answer will be “no”. Does not suit you if you are counting on author payouts — there are none.
Verified data
The checked data this deep dive rests on.
About the platform
documentation: «because Lemmy is decentralized, the platform has no single moderation team and no platform-level rules; each instance is responsible for creating and enforcing its own moderation policy»
KEY POINT: no single answer as to whether advertising is allowed exists
source, checked 2026-07-28
the project states: «Lemmy is not controlled by any company. There is no profit motive, no advertising and no user tracking»
The platform has no ad manager
source, checked 2026-07-28
confirms the entry in the database: there is no readable meta description on the home page; the wording «a decentralised platform for community discussions» is taken from the page title and body
No discrepancies with the database were found
source, checked 2026-07-28
Who's here
the project reports: 484 servers and 35.3 thousand active users in the «Lemmyverse» as of 27 July 2026
The project's own counter; the method of counting an active user is not disclosed
source, checked 2026-07-28
the lemmy.ml instance on the check date: 58,346 users, 210,516 posts, 1,061,712 comments, 4,779 communities; active over a day 651, over a week 1,230, over a month 1,889, over half a year 3,534
The data was obtained through the instance's open API without registration
source, checked 2026-07-28
Account and access
at registration: a username (cannot be changed), an email address (usually optional), a password; the administrator may set an arbitrary question with manual approval of the answer and may enable a captcha
Manual approval of an application is common practice
source, checked 2026-07-28
on the check date the lemmy.ml instance ran in RequireApplication mode — registration only by application with answers to the administrator's questions
An example of a real instance
source, checked 2026-07-28
the settings contain a «Bot Account» flag for automated posts; readers have a paired setting that hides bot accounts
A flagged bot will not be seen by part of the audience
source, checked 2026-07-28
Business terms
Lemmy can work as a blogging platform: create a community and switch on «only moderators can post»; anyone will be able to comment, and it can be read from other platforms in the federation and over RSS
The only described format for a company's presence
source, checked 2026-07-28
Content
the project's code of conduct: the use of AI is permitted only where it is explicitly mentioned, and all text and code produced by a language model must be checked manually by the author before submission
The code applies to the project's own sites, including lemmy.ml, not to the whole network
source, checked 2026-07-28
Promotion
sort modes: Active (the default), Hot, Scaled (a boost for less active communities), Controversial, New, Old, Most Comments, New Comments, Top for the day, week, month, year and all time
The algorithm is described openly rather than hidden
source, checked 2026-07-28
instance administrators see the names of everyone who voted, and moderators see them within their own communities; individual votes are federated together with the username and may be displayed publicly by other platforms
Inflating votes is visible to operators
source, checked 2026-07-28
Limits and restrictions
the platform has no single limits on post length, file size or action rate: the values are set by a particular instance's configuration
The project's showcase does not publish default numeric values
source, checked 2026-07-28
Restrictions
for an instance to get onto the list on join-lemmy.org: federation with at least one instance from the list, a site description and an icon, registration applications enabled, at least 5 users with a post or comment in the past month, the latest major version of Lemmy
Applications are required so that bots do not send spam across the federation
source, checked 2026-07-28
a moderator is responsible for a single community and an administrator for the instance; only an administrator can issue a full ban, delete a user together with all their posts and files (Purge user) and pin a post to the home page
All moderator actions are written to a public mod log
source, checked 2026-07-28
API access
Lemmy has OpenAPI documentation and a JavaScript client; the nodes enterprise.lemmy.ml, ds9.lemmy.ml and voyager.lemmy.ml are open for testing; RSS and Atom feeds are available for All, Subscribed, Inbox, a user and a community
Reading through the API works without registration
source, checked 2026-07-28
Languages
the interface language of the home page: en
The language is taken from the markup attribute, the versions from hreflang
source, checked 2026-07-28
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