This is a comparison of sites publicly accessible on the internet known to be using the LiveJournal codebase.

The LiveJournal

LiveJournal

LiveJournal is a virtual community where Internet users can keep a blog, journal or diary. LiveJournal is also the name of the free and open source server software that was designed to run the LiveJournal virtual community....

 web community is based on open source software for blogging

Weblog software

Weblog software is software designed to simplify the creation and maintenance of weblogs...

 and social networking, primarily written in Perl

Perl

Perl is a high-level, general-purpose, interpreted, dynamic programming language. Perl was originally developed by Larry Wall in 1987 as a general-purpose Unix scripting language to make report processing easier. Since then, it has undergone many changes and revisions and become widely popular...

. Because of this, many other communities have been designed using the LiveJournal software. These sites have very similar features and formats to LiveJournal itself. However, they often have different terms of service

Terms of service

Terms of service are rules which one must agree to abide by in order to use a service. Unless in violation of consumer protection laws, such terms are usually legally binding...

 than LiveJournal's, making them attractive to users who have become disenchanted with LiveJournal's rules and wish to move their journals to other hosts. Unlike the others on this list, Dreamwidth is a code fork

Fork (software development)

In software engineering, a project fork happens when developers take a legal copy of source code from one software package and start independent development on it, creating a distinct piece of software...

 of the Livejournal code.

General Information & Feature Comparison

Name	Year Began	Description/Focus	Registered user Registered user A registered user is one who uses a program or a website and provides his/her credentials, effectively proving his/her identity.-Technical differences:... s	Updated in past 30 days	Registration	Ability to syndicate off-site feeds RSS -Mathematics:* Root-sum-square, the square root of the sum of the squares of the elements of a data set* Residual sum of squares in statistics-Technology:* RSS , "Really Simple Syndication" or "Rich Site Summary", a family of web feed formats...	Userpics Free	Userpics Paid	Monthly Cost for Paid Account	Yearly Cost for Paid Account	Permanent Account
Asks	2006	Japanese community	11,514	123	Open	Unknown	3	Unknown	Unknown	Unknown	Unknown
Blurty	2002	General 18+ community	1,002,240	8,666	Open to people 18 and over	Paid only	3	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A
DeadJournal	2001	Dark-themed community	499,828	1,933	Invite-only Invitation system An invitation system is a method of joining an organization, such as a club or a website. In regular society, it refers to any system whereby new members are chosen; they cannot simply apply...  or paid (OpenID OpenID OpenID is an open standard that describes how users can be authenticated in a decentralized manner, eliminating the need for services to provide their own ad hoc systems and allowing users to consolidate their digital identities... )	All users	5	50	2.5 USD	15 USD	N/A
Dreamwidth Dreamwidth Dreamwidth is an online journal service based on the LiveJournal code. It is a code fork of the original service, set up by ex-LiveJournal staff Denise Paolucci and Mark Smith, born out of a desire for a new community based on open access, transparency, freedom and respect.Dreamwidth was announced...	2008	Open-source social networking platform. Allows to import entries from an LJ journal with comments.	615,520	19,356	Invite-only Invitation system An invitation system is a method of joining an organization, such as a club or a website. In regular society, it refers to any system whereby new members are chosen; they cannot simply apply...  or paid (OpenID OpenID OpenID is an open standard that describes how users can be authenticated in a decentralized manner, eliminating the need for services to provide their own ad hoc systems and allowing users to consolidate their digital identities... )	All users	15	100/250	3 USD	35 to 50 USD	200 USD
InsaneJournal	2001	Insane asylum-themed community	1,222,151		Open to people 13 and over (OpenID OpenID OpenID is an open standard that describes how users can be authenticated in a decentralized manner, eliminating the need for services to provide their own ad hoc systems and allowing users to consolidate their digital identities... )	Paid users can create, free users can read	100	250	5 USD	25 USD	N/A
Ivanovo	2005	Russian community	11,123	330	Open	Unknown	Unknown	Unknown	Unknown	Unknown	Unknown
IziBlog	2004	French & English community	12,606	115	Open to people 13 and over (OpenID OpenID OpenID is an open standard that describes how users can be authenticated in a decentralized manner, eliminating the need for services to provide their own ad hoc systems and allowing users to consolidate their digital identities... )	All users	150	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A
JournalFen	2003	Fandom Fandom Fandom is a term used to refer to a subculture composed of fans characterized by a feeling of sympathy and camaraderie with others who share a common interest...  focused community for 18+ only	19,750	576	Invite-only Invitation system An invitation system is a method of joining an organization, such as a club or a website. In regular society, it refers to any system whereby new members are chosen; they cannot simply apply...  or paid	Paid users can create, free users can read	10	500/1000	N/A	24/36 USD	N/A
Kraslan	2006	Russian community	1,015	69	Open	Unknown	Unknown	Unknown	Unknown	Unknown	Unknown
LiveJournal LiveJournal LiveJournal is a virtual community where Internet users can keep a blog, journal or diary. LiveJournal is also the name of the free and open source server software that was designed to run the LiveJournal virtual community....	1999	Original LiveJournal site	26,166,366	857,802	Open to people 13 and over (OpenID OpenID OpenID is an open standard that describes how users can be authenticated in a decentralized manner, eliminating the need for services to provide their own ad hoc systems and allowing users to consolidate their digital identities... )	Paid users can create, free users can read	6 [free] or 15 [plus]	30	3 USD	19.95 USD	175 USD
Lj.Rossia.org	2005	Russian community. Allows to import entries from an LJ journal (even suspended) with comments.	49,420	1,675	Open	All users	100	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A
OpenWeblog	2005	Unknown	452	5	Unknown	Unknown	Unknown	Unknown	Unknown	Unknown	Unknown
Scribbld	2007	General community	29,094	686	Open (OpenID OpenID OpenID is an open standard that describes how users can be authenticated in a decentralized manner, eliminating the need for services to provide their own ad hoc systems and allowing users to consolidate their digital identities... )	Paid only	6	50	5 USD	20.00 USD	N/A
Sviesta Ciba	2002	Latvian community	28,919	10,324	Open to people 13 and over	Unknown	Unknown	Unknown	Unknown	Unknown	Unknown
Name	Year Began	Description/Focus	Registered user Registered user A registered user is one who uses a program or a website and provides his/her credentials, effectively proving his/her identity.-Technical differences:... s	Updated in past 30 days	Registration	RSS RSS -Mathematics:* Root-sum-square, the square root of the sum of the squares of the elements of a data set* Residual sum of squares in statistics-Technology:* RSS , "Really Simple Syndication" or "Rich Site Summary", a family of web feed formats...  Feeds	Userpics Free	Userpics Paid	Monthly Cost for Paid Account	Yearly Cost for Paid Account	Permanent Account

Defunct Sites

These are sites that previously ran the LiveJournal codebase, but are either no longer available or have transitioned to using a different codebase.

Name	Year Began	Description/Focus	Registered user Registered user A registered user is one who uses a program or a website and provides his/her credentials, effectively proving his/her identity.-Technical differences:... s	Updated in past 30 days	Registration	Ability to syndicate off-site feeds RSS -Mathematics:* Root-sum-square, the square root of the sum of the squares of the elements of a data set* Residual sum of squares in statistics-Technology:* RSS , "Really Simple Syndication" or "Rich Site Summary", a family of web feed formats...	Userpics Free	Userpics Paid	Monthly Cost for Paid Account	Yearly Cost for Paid Account	Permanent Account
Academ	2006	Russian community	967	260	Open	Unknown	Unknown	Unknown	Unknown	Unknown	Unknown
BlogEnglish	2007	Russian/English language study	374	9	Open	Unknown	Unknown	Unknown	Unknown	Unknown	Unknown
BlogOnline	2005	Russian community, defunct as of early 2008	818,127	15,221	Open	Unknown	Unknown	Unknown	Unknown	Unknown	Unknown
BootieJournal	2003	Private site, not responding as of 2010	69	2	Invite-only Invitation system An invitation system is a method of joining an organization, such as a club or a website. In regular society, it refers to any system whereby new members are chosen; they cannot simply apply...	Unknown	Unknown	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A
Caleida	2003	General journaling site, not responding as of 2010	0 Unknown	0 Unknown	Open	All users	3	100	2.5 USD	20 USD	N/A
CommieJournal	2007	General 18+ community, defunct as of late 2009	10,495	167	Open to people 18 and over	N/A	100	500	5 USD	20 USD	75 USD
CrazyLife	2003	General journaling community, not responding as of 2010	43,963	55	Open to people 13 and over	All users	Unknown	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A
GreatestJournal	2003	Defunct; formerly a roleplaying focused community	1,883,776 prior to going down	N/A	Disabled	Unknown	100	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A
Inksome	2007	18+ fandom-friendly community, formerly known as Scribblit, defunct as of April 2011	33,772	161	Invite-only Invitation system An invitation system is a method of joining an organization, such as a club or a website. In regular society, it refers to any system whereby new members are chosen; they cannot simply apply...  or paid	Paid users and early contributors can create, free users can read	150	300	3 USD	25 USD	120 USD
Isurgut	2004	Russian community	2,935	23	Open	Unknown	Unknown	Unknown	Unknown	Unknown	Unknown
LiveJourbal	2005	Gerbil-themed community, not responding as of 2010	14,951	50	Invite-only Invitation system An invitation system is a method of joining an organization, such as a club or a website. In regular society, it refers to any system whereby new members are chosen; they cannot simply apply...  or paid (OpenID OpenID OpenID is an open standard that describes how users can be authenticated in a decentralized manner, eliminating the need for services to provide their own ad hoc systems and allowing users to consolidate their digital identities... )	Unknown	15	100	N/A	N/A	25 USD
LiveLogCity	2003	General community	9,302	296	Open	N/A	1	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A
LostJournal	2005	General community, not responding as of 2010	6,043	46	Invite-only Invitation system An invitation system is a method of joining an organization, such as a club or a website. In regular society, it refers to any system whereby new members are chosen; they cannot simply apply...  or paid (OpenID OpenID OpenID is an open standard that describes how users can be authenticated in a decentralized manner, eliminating the need for services to provide their own ad hoc systems and allowing users to consolidate their digital identities... )	Paid users can create, free users can read	3	15	Unknown	Unknown	Unknown
Minilog	2002	General community created by Aaron B. Russell on November 8, 2002, service was shut down October 30, 2007. Domain was allowed to expire, has since been bought by someone else and now shows GoDaddy's domain parking page with ads.	10,648	2	Open	Paid users can create, free users can read	Unknown	3000 (6000 for permanent accounts)	Minimum 2 months, 3 GBP or 5.50 USD	15 GBP or 28 USD	65 GBP or 121 USD
uJournal / AboutMyLife	2002	uJournal went down in August 2004 due to a hardware failure. As of March 2005, uJournal accounts and postings were restored, with a "uj_" prefix, as part of AboutMyLife, a different journaling service. AboutMyLife seems to have gone down permanently around May 2007.	0 Unknown	0 Zero	Suspended	Unknown	Unknown	Unknown	Unknown	Unknown	Unknown
Name	Year Began	Description/Focus	Registered user Registered user A registered user is one who uses a program or a website and provides his/her credentials, effectively proving his/her identity.-Technical differences:... s	Updated in past 30 days	Registration	RSS RSS -Mathematics:* Root-sum-square, the square root of the sum of the squares of the elements of a data set* Residual sum of squares in statistics-Technology:* RSS , "Really Simple Syndication" or "Rich Site Summary", a family of web feed formats...  Feeds	Userpics Free	Userpics Paid	Monthly Cost for Paid Account	Yearly Cost for Paid Account	Permanent Account

External links

• Livejournal codebase: most recent version (viewable code); subversion repository
• "Blogware & CMS - Where to Create a Blog"
• "LiveJournal Churns Users and Squeezes Small Hosts" — historical figures (2005)
• "The Living Breathing Clones"