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What is Lemmy?

If Mastodon feels like Twitter and Pixelfed feels like Instagram, then Lemmy is closest to Reddit.
It’s a place built around communities, questions, and discussions — but without the corporate control and ad-driven algorithms.

Instead of one giant site, Lemmy is made up of many independent servers (instances), each hosting its own set of communities. Together, they form a bigger, interconnected network.

🗣️ Why people use Lemmy

Think about what you usually do on Reddit:
- Ask a question and get real answers.
- Share an article and discuss it.
- Join communities around your hobbies, politics, or local news.

Lemmy does the same thing — but it’s federated and open-source, which means:
- No corporate ads trying to “optimize” your feed.
- Communities can set their own rules instead of being moderated from above.
- You’re free to move to another server if you don’t like how one is run.

For anyone tired of Reddit’s changes (like paywalls, API shutdowns, or heavy ads), Lemmy is a refreshing alternative.

🙋 Who’s in charge?

The short answer: nobody.
Each Lemmy server is run by the people who host it. Some are small and cozy, others are large and general-purpose.

This distributed ownership means:
- No CEO or shareholders can change how Lemmy works.
- Different communities can moderate themselves.
- Toxic or abusive servers can be defederated (blocked) by others, keeping the ecosystem healthier.

🚀 Getting started

Joining Lemmy can feel unusual if you’re used to just going to reddit.com. Here’s how it works:

  1. Pick a server (instance).
  2. Big, general servers like lemmy.world or lemm.ee host thousands of communities.

  3. Smaller servers can focus on specific interests, languages, or regions.

  4. Make an account.

  5. Your username will look like @name@server.

  6. Example: @jane@lemmy.world

  7. Join communities.

  8. Communities are usually written as !topic@server.

  9. Example: !technology@lemmy.ml

  10. Browse across the whole network.

  11. Even if you’re on one server, you can subscribe to communities on any other server.

👉 To explore communities, try:
- Lemmyverse.net — a search and discovery tool across Lemmy.
- Lemmy Explorer — community browsing and server stats.

📱 Using Lemmy day to day

  • Feels familiar if you’ve used Reddit: upvotes, downvotes, comment threads.
  • Posts can be links, text, images, or questions.
  • Mobile apps make it easy:
  • Jerboa (official Android app)
  • Liftoff (iOS)
  • Or use it directly in your browser.

🌱 Why it’s worth trying

Lemmy is for people who like the discussion-board style of social media but want it community-owned instead of corporate-owned.

It’s not as polished or full as Reddit yet — but that’s part of the appeal. It’s growing, it’s open, and you can help shape it.

For newcomers, the hardest step is simply picking a server. After that, it feels natural — browse, join, chat, repeat.

đź”— Where to start