Commento vs Lobsters
A side-by-side comparison of two self-hosted forums & community options — licensing, setup difficulty, resource needs, and what each one replaces.
Not the right match-up?
Commento
Privacy-friendly embeddable discussion widget
VS
Lobsters
Computing-focused link aggregation and discussion site
| Feature | Commento | Lobsters |
|---|---|---|
| Category | Forums & Community | Forums & Community |
| License | MIT | BSD-3-Clause |
| Language | Go | Ruby |
| Setup difficulty | Easy | Medium |
| Min. RAM | 128 MB | 512 MB |
| Deployment | docker, binary | bare-metal, source |
| GitHub stars | ★ 3,781 | ★ 4,814 |
| First released | 2017 | 2012 |
| Replaces | Disqus, Facebook Comments | Reddit, Hacker News |
Why pick each one
Choose Commento if…
- Released under the MIT license
- Easy to set up — beginner-friendly
- First-class Docker support for quick deployment
- Active community (3.8k GitHub stars)
Choose Lobsters if…
- Released under the BSD-3-Clause license
- Active community (4.8k GitHub stars)
- Written in Ruby
- Lightweight — runs in 512 MB RAM
Frequently asked questions
Is Commento or Lobsters better?
Neither is universally better. Lobsters has the larger community, while Commento is simpler to set up (easy difficulty). Choose based on the comparison table above and your own setup.
Are Commento and Lobsters free and open-source?
Yes. Commento is licensed under MIT and Lobsters under BSD-3-Clause. Both can be self-hosted at no software cost.
Can I run Commento and Lobsters with Docker?
Commento: yes. Lobsters: check the project docs for container support.