Bridging Lemmy and Reddit: Exploring Cross-Platform Interaction
Posted by UnflinchingSugartits@reddit | RedditAlternatives | View on Reddit | 10 comments
We live in 2025, where technology has made amazing things possible. So, here’s a thought: could we interlink the Lemmy protocol with Reddit to enable interaction between the two platforms?
I’m not an advanced IT or coding expert, and I don’t have the resources to figure out who could tackle something like this, but I genuinely believe it’s possible. Imagine this:
You post on Reddit, and because your Reddit account is linked with your Lemmy account, that post automatically shows up on Lemmy.
Any replies you receive—whether on Reddit or Lemmy—would notify you and clearly indicate which platform the response came from.
Reddit content would be searchable and accessible on Lemmy, and Lemmy content would be the same on Reddit, creating a seamless experience between the two.
How would something like this even work? Would Lemmy have to approach the Reddit Corporation to discuss and gain permission to make this happen? Are there specific protocols or APIs that could make it easier to connect the two systems?
If this kind of interoperability could be set up tomorrow, how do you think it would function in practice? Are there technical limitations, or is this something we could realistically achieve with the right expertise?
I’d love to hear your thoughts or insights on how to make this happen—or whether it’s even feasible!
LibertyLizard@reddit
There are actually bots on Lemmy that post things from Reddit. However, it only goes one way and hasn’t been too popular there.
export_tank_harmful@reddit
You know, I'm surprised that no one has made an "overlay" for reddit, sort of like how BetterTTV has extra emotes and whatnot.
But bake in a "forum" of sorts, allowing side discussions on posts that only people with that extension could see.
It could even be integrated with Lemmy or other alternatives, allowing that "bridge" over.
It would essentially piggyback off of reddit but somehow connect over with an alternative.
Or heck, even make it a "Trillian" of sorts, having a bunch of alternatives wired in together.
It could allow discovery just by using reddit. And similar "subreddits" would be linked to one another via their "primary" reddit subreddit.
Then you could subscribe/follow/etc on the alternative platforms, eventually being able to leave reddit all together (if that was your goal).
Idk. Could be a neat project to throw together.
I'm horrid at API calls and webdev in general though, so I'll probably pass on it (unless I get caffeinated enough haha).
tunachilimac@reddit
To start with you (Lemmy) would have to somehow convince Reddit, a for-profit public company with a market cap of roughly $30,000,000,000 that they should invest a fair amount of money redesigning the way their site works to integrate with an open source platform and funnel traffic away from their for-profit site. There is no upside to the Reddit board/management/investors and plenty of downsides.
Lemmy is open source, they don't "make this happen" Reddit would have to make changes to the Reddit platform, which would involve a lot of technical problems beyond the scope that can be discussed in a single comment. And that's if you could do the miracle of my first point.
Reddit did have a public API that could have allowed you to build a bridge system of sorts but they removed those (sort of) and to do it now you would have to get permission and pay a LOT of money as their API rates last I saw were a lot higher than industry norms. You may remember the widespread "third party app" api protest awhile back, that's when this possibility died.
Your other points about if it's feasible, from a tech standpoint yes. But you'll never convince the investors to undertake such a massive project when the outcome is guaranteed less profit.
scstraus@reddit
Reddit could do this any time they wanted by adding the activitypub protocol to reddit. They will never do this, so you're better off just going to Lemmy which is already the thing which does what you describe.
busymom0@reddit
For legal reasons, I'd think yes. But from a tech point of view, it can be done without needing anything specific from Reddit by simply writing a web scraper for all accounts which opt in for this. Though it was be resource intensive to be constantly polling the reddit website for all those accounts - something where Reddit would get mad and may take legal action.
What you are basically describing is if Reddit decides to become federated similar to Lemmy. But from a business point of view, they don't have any reason whatsoever to do so.
UnflinchingSugartits@reddit (OP)
I wonder if there is a way to keep both protocols separate, but connected still with out doing federation if that makes sense
Federal_Zombie_9456@reddit
Got to be a way to add it to an agrigate app.
Federal_Zombie_9456@reddit
Looks like right now you would have to post one for each.
UnflinchingSugartits@reddit (OP)
Yes 💯
UnflinchingSugartits@reddit (OP)
Very informative, thank you