Element vs Invidious
A side-by-side comparison of two self-hosted social networks options
— licensing, setup difficulty, resource needs, and what each one
replaces.
Not the right match-up?
Compare Element with
choose an app… Mastodon Discourse NodeBB Lemmy diaspora* Nitter Misskey Piped Fizzy Pixelfed Flarum HumHub Elk WriteFreely LibReddit Campsite Campfire Redlib Mixpost Pro Vanilla Forums Misago Loomio Artalk pump.io Plume Pleroma Endurain Manyfold phpBB Elgg Friendica Mobilizon Phanpy Firefish OSSN Bridgy Fed Takahe Fedify snac NeoDB webmention.io Bridgy Hometown Glitch-soc Soapbox Enigma 1/2 BBS Chirpy kbin Sharkey ActivityPub for WordPress Smithereen Postmarks Mastodon Bird UI Wavelog Hollo Gathio Loops Snikket Ktistec Libremdb Mbin Trustroots Akkoma Gancio Honk Socialhome Hubzilla Epicyon Iceshrimp mlmym Wafrn GoBlog Hatsu BuddyPress Sphinx Relay noStrudel Mitra lemmyBB Friendiqa Hub Fedibird MeshChatX Streams Enafore Sublinks Buddycloud Zap Nostr Relay Squeaknode Khatru Pyramid Catodon Route96 Osada usocial Tesseract AsmBB Bloat Forte GoToSocial Iceshrimp.NET Masto-FE (🦥 flavour) PeerTube search-index Snort yarn.social
Compare Invidious with
choose an app… Mastodon Discourse PeerTube NodeBB Lemmy diaspora* Nitter Misskey Piped Tube Archivist Fizzy Pixelfed Flarum HumHub Elk WriteFreely Pinchflat LibReddit MediaCMS Campsite Campfire Redlib Mixpost Pro Vanilla Forums Misago Loomio Artalk pump.io Plume Pleroma Endurain Manyfold phpBB Elgg Friendica Mobilizon Phanpy Firefish OSSN Bridgy Fed Takahe Fedify snac NeoDB webmention.io Bridgy Hometown Glitch-soc Damselfly Web Soapbox Enigma 1/2 BBS Chirpy kbin Sharkey ActivityPub for WordPress Smithereen Postmarks Mastodon Bird UI Wavelog Hollo Gathio Loops Snikket Ktistec Libremdb Mbin Trustroots Akkoma Gancio Honk Socialhome Hubzilla Epicyon Iceshrimp mlmym Wafrn GoBlog Hatsu BuddyPress Sphinx Relay noStrudel Mitra lemmyBB Friendiqa Hub Fedibird MeshChatX Streams Enafore Sublinks Buddycloud Zap Nostr Relay Squeaknode Khatru Pyramid Catodon Route96 Osada usocial Tesseract AsmBB Bloat Forte GoToSocial Iceshrimp.NET Masto-FE (🦥 flavour) PeerTube search-index Snort Tube yarn.social
Feature Element Invidious Category Social Networks Social Networks License free GPL-3.0-only Language TypeScript Crystal Setup difficulty Easy Medium Min. RAM 512 MB 50 MB Deployment docker, one-click bare-metal GitHub stars ★ 13,353 ★ 22,442 First released 2022 2023 Replaces — YouTube
Why pick each one
Choose Element if… Easy to set up — beginner-friendly First-class Docker support for quick deployment One-click install on common self-host platforms Mature project with 13.4k GitHub stars Element details Choose Invidious if… Released under the GPL-3.0-only license Mature project with 22.4k GitHub stars Written in Crystal Tiny footprint — runs in 50 MB RAM Invidious details
Frequently asked questions Is Element or Invidious better? Neither is universally better. Invidious has the larger community, while Element is simpler to set up (easy difficulty). Choose based on the comparison table above and your own setup.
Are Element and Invidious free and open-source? Yes. Element is licensed under free and Invidious under GPL-3.0-only. Both can be self-hosted at no software cost.
Can I run Element and Invidious with Docker? Element: yes. Invidious: check the project docs for container support.