Self-hosted Communication - Social Networks and Forums: what licence are you actually agreeing to

“Self-hosted” and “open source” are not the same promise, and the lists that recommend these projects rarely separate them. This page sorts 40 communication - social networks and forums projects by the licence you are actually agreeing to, as read on 2026-08-20.

11 of 40 are permissive: run them, change them, keep your changes to yourself. 19 are AGPL, where serving a modified copy over a network obliges you to publish those changes, which is the clause that catches people who self-host for a team. 0 are not open source at all, carrying a proprietary or restricted-use licence. The remaining 9 are ordinary copyleft.

Project	Licence	What that means	Stars	Maintenance	Language
Flarum	MIT	Permissive, no strings	16,376	Active	PHP
Answer	Apache-2.0	Permissive, no strings	15,653	Active	Go
remark42	MIT	Permissive, no strings	5,582	Active	Go
Isso	MIT	Permissive, no strings	5,302	Active	Python
Artalk	MIT	Permissive, no strings	2,319	Active	Go
Coral	Apache-2.0	Permissive, no strings	1,996	Active	TypeScript
Scoold	Apache-2.0	Permissive, no strings	921	Active	Java
Simple Machines Forum	BSD-3-Clause	Permissive, no strings	748	Active	PHP
Enigma 1/2 BBS	BSD-2-Clause	Permissive, no strings	664	Active	JavaScript
Hubzilla	MIT	Permissive, no strings	-	Not measured	PHP
yarn.social	MIT	Permissive, no strings	-	Not measured	Go
Discourse	GPL-2.0	Copyleft, publish your changes	47,681	Active	Ruby
NodeBB	GPL-3.0	Copyleft, publish your changes	15,199	Active	JavaScript
Misago	GPL-2.0	Copyleft, publish your changes	2,774	Active	Python
phpBB	GPL-2.0	Copyleft, publish your changes	2,090	Active	PHP
Elgg	GPL-2.0	Copyleft, publish your changes	1,680	Active	PHP
MyBB	LGPL-3.0	Copyleft, publish your changes	1,240	Active	PHP
BuddyPress	GPL-2.0	Copyleft, publish your changes	251	Active	PHP
AsmBB	EUPL-1.2	Copyleft, publish your changes	-	Not measured	Assembly
Iceshrimp.NET	EUPL-1.2	Copyleft, publish your changes	-	Not measured	.NET
Mastodon	AGPL-3.0	AGPL, network copyleft	50,230	Active	Ruby
Lemmy	AGPL-3.0	AGPL, network copyleft	14,560	Active	Rust
diaspora*	AGPL-3.0	AGPL, network copyleft	13,652	Active	Ruby
Misskey	AGPL-3.0	AGPL, network copyleft	11,298	Active	TypeScript
PixelFed	AGPL-3.0	AGPL, network copyleft	7,068	Active	PHP
HumHub	AGPL-3.0	AGPL, network copyleft	6,733	Active	PHP
Redlib	AGPL-3.0	AGPL, network copyleft	3,641	Active	Rust
Loomio	AGPL-3.0	AGPL, network copyleft	2,590	Active	Ruby
Movim	AGPL-3.0	AGPL, network copyleft	2,042	Active	PHP
Talkyard	AGPL-3.0	AGPL, network copyleft	1,812	Active	TypeScript
Friendica	AGPL-3.0	AGPL, network copyleft	1,684	Active	PHP
qpixel	AGPL-3.0	AGPL, network copyleft	439	Active	Ruby
Socialhome	AGPL-3.0	AGPL, network copyleft	387	Active	Python
Hatsu	AGPL-3.0	AGPL, network copyleft	257	Slowing	Rust
Habitat	AGPL-3.0	AGPL, network copyleft	147	Active	PHP
Akkoma	AGPL-3.0	AGPL, network copyleft	-	Not measured	Elixir
GoToSocial	AGPL-3.0	AGPL, network copyleft	-	Not measured	Docker
PieFed	AGPL-3.0	AGPL, network copyleft	-	Not measured	Python
Pleroma	AGPL-3.0	AGPL, network copyleft	-	Not measured	Elixir
OSSN	CAL-1.0	Unstated or unclassified	1,237	Active	PHP

What the licence column means

Permissive (MIT, Apache-2.0, BSD, ISC): do what you like, keep changes private.
Copyleft (GPL, LGPL, MPL, EPL): changes you distribute must ship their source.
AGPL, network copyleft: the same, and running it for others over a network counts as distribution. This is the one that surprises people who self-host for a team or a side business.
Source-available (SSPL, BUSL, Elastic, Commons Clause): not open source. Reading and self-use are usually fine; offering it as a service is not.
Other / unstated: the dataset lists no licence we could classify. Check the repo before you rely on it.

The Maintenance column is a second, independent check: the age of the most recent commit on the default branch, read from the GitHub API on 2026-08-20. Active is within 180 days, Slowing is 180 to 365, Dormant is over a year, Archived means the maintainer marked the repo read-only, and Not measured means the project is hosted outside GitHub so the check does not apply.

Source data from awesome-selfhosted-data, used under CC BY-SA 3.0. Licence family grouping and maintenance status are computed by this site (from the upstream licence fields and the GitHub API) and are not part of the upstream dataset. Licence classification is a summary, not legal advice: check the project’s own LICENSE file before you rely on it. This page is published under the same licence.