Software Alternatives, Accelerators & Startups

Discourse VS FluxBB

Compare Discourse VS FluxBB and see what are their differences

Discourse logo Discourse

Discourse is an open source discussion platform built for the next decade of the Internet.

FluxBB logo FluxBB

FluxBB is a fast, light, user-friendly forum application for your website.
  • Discourse Landing page
    Landing page //
    2023-06-13
  • FluxBB Landing page
    Landing page //
    2021-09-19

Discourse features and specs

  • Modern Interface
    Discourse provides a clean, intuitive, and responsive user interface that works well on both desktops and mobile devices.
  • Open Source
    Discourse is open source software, allowing for customization, self-hosting, and community contributions, which can reduce costs and increase flexibility.
  • Rich Features
    The platform includes a variety of built-in features such as threaded replies, real-time notifications, and community moderation tools.
  • Scalability
    Discourse is designed to handle small communities as well as large, active forums, making it suitable for a variety of use cases.
  • Security
    Regular updates and a dedicated security team help keep the software secure against vulnerabilities.
  • Integration and APIs
    Discourse offers extensive APIs and integrates well with various other services and plugins, facilitating seamless extensions and automation.

Possible disadvantages of Discourse

  • Resource Intensive
    Discourse can be resource-heavy, which may require significant server capacity and maintenance, especially for large communities.
  • Hosting Costs
    While you can self-host Discourse, the server and maintenance costs can be high. Managed hosting plans provided by Discourse can also be expensive.
  • Complex Setup
    Installing and configuring Discourse can be complex, particularly for those without technical expertise in server management and Ruby on Rails.
  • Learning Curve
    Users and administrators might face a steeper learning curve compared to more traditional forum software due to its modern interface and extensive features.
  • Limited Built-in Themes
    The default theme options are somewhat limited, and extensive customization requires knowledge of front-end development.
  • Dependency on PostgreSQL and Redis
    Discourse relies on PostgreSQL for its database and Redis for caching, which might complicate setup and maintenance compared to solutions that use simpler database architectures.

FluxBB features and specs

  • Lightweight
    FluxBB is known for its lightweight design, which results in faster load times and reduced server strain compared to more feature-heavy forum solutions.
  • Simplicity
    The software is designed to be easy to set up and use, making it accessible to users without extensive technical knowledge.
  • Open Source
    FluxBB is open-source software, which means that it can be freely modified and distributed. The community can contribute to its development and improvement.
  • Security
    The lightweight nature and simpler codebase can reduce the attack surface for potential vulnerabilities compared to more complex systems.
  • Community Support
    Being an open-source platform, FluxBB has an active community that can provide support, share plugins, and collaborate on troubleshooting.

Possible disadvantages of FluxBB

  • Limited Features
    FluxBB may lack some of the advanced features offered by more robust forum solutions, such as extensive customization options, integrations, and plugins.
  • Appearance
    The default design of FluxBB is quite basic and may not be visually appealing to all users. Custom styling requires additional effort.
  • Manual Updates
    Updating FluxBB may require manual intervention, which can be cumbersome for users who are not technically savvy.
  • Smaller Ecosystem
    The smaller user base and developer community might mean fewer available plugins and themes compared to more popular forum software.
  • Customization Limitations
    Due to its simpler architecture, there may be limitations on how extensively the forum can be customized to fit unique needs.

Discourse videos

Why We Chose The Discourse Platform For Our Forums

More videos:

  • Review - Why Discourse is the Best Forum Software Out There (No, Really) | Location Rebel
  • Review - A Grammar Review for Discourse Analysis

FluxBB videos

No FluxBB videos yet. You could help us improve this page by suggesting one.

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Category Popularity

0-100% (relative to Discourse and FluxBB)
Forums And Forum Software
Forums
89 89%
11% 11
Community Platform
89 89%
11% 11
Social & Communications
78 78%
22% 22

User comments

Share your experience with using Discourse and FluxBB. For example, how are they different and which one is better?
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Reviews

These are some of the external sources and on-site user reviews we've used to compare Discourse and FluxBB

Discourse Reviews

20 Telegram Alternatives to Chat With in 2024
Discourse is a basic forum function that could be an alternative to Telegram if you want to stick to text discussions. It's pretty analog, missing both video and livestreaming tools. Instead, Discourse is a basic community that lets you organize discussions--it feels a bit like having your own reddit or Quora.
18 Best Discord Alternatives 2020 | Expert Reviews
Discourse comes in a couple of flavours. You can self-host it yourself in which case the software is free, and you simply need to sign up for server space, or you can pay Discourse for a hosted-for-you option, though self-hosting is a lot cheaper the premium option takes care of the technical side.
IndieHackers: Best forum software
I used Flarum when trying to get a community set up for my product (ended up abandoning it to revisit when we have a larger customer base). It worked fairly well and I enjoyed it but it's definitely beta and unless you're fairly tech savvy it's not quite worth the setup / maintenance. Lots of config changes, crashes, huge issues with plugins, and some features missing. I'd...

FluxBB Reviews

We have no reviews of FluxBB yet.
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Social recommendations and mentions

Based on our record, Discourse should be more popular than FluxBB. It has been mentiond 23 times since March 2021. We are tracking product recommendations and mentions on various public social media platforms and blogs. They can help you identify which product is more popular and what people think of it.

Discourse mentions (23)

  • Qilin: A Starter Project Template For Every Open Source Project
    GitHub Discussions can also be a great place for support as long as these are regularly monitored. Another option along the same lines is Discourse and the Open Source Matrix which is used by quite a few Open Source and community-based projects. - Source: dev.to / over 1 year ago
  • Ask HN: How to run an old-school mailing list?
    A lot of communities use [Discourse ](https://discourse.org). [LPSF](https://forum lpsf.org) migrated to it when Yahoo Groups was discontinued. Some of the advantages are that it's open source, self-hostable, and can be configured to work as both a traditional mailing list and modern forum. - Source: Hacker News / over 1 year ago
  • My Fediverse use โ€“ I'm hosting everything myself โ€“ PeerTube, Mastodon and Lemmy
    More like https://discourse.org/. You can run it yourself, but I can also just have them ding a credit card every month and not think about it again (I do this for a community). - Source: Hacker News / almost 2 years ago
  • Reddit faces content quality concerns after its Great Mod Purge
    Discourse perhaps? I've seen it in use in a few places; it has a modern look and feel to it at least. https://discourse.org/. - Source: Hacker News / about 2 years ago
  • So Long, Twitter and Reddit
    I fully agree with you see my comment here[0] -- I think you may have misread my comment, it says "Discourse" (as in the forum software[1]), not Discord. [0]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37245220. - Source: Hacker News / about 2 years ago
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FluxBB mentions (3)

  • Arch Linux Forms Emailing Plaintext Passwords
    There are no passwords stored plain. The platform that powers the bbs is open source and tiny. You can check in <5 min that it's not doing anything shady here. Source: over 3 years ago
  • nimforum: Lightweight alternative to Discourse written in Nim
    FluxBB [1], the PHP based forum that powers the Archlinux wiki works fine without JS, and IMHO looks fine too. If you are looking for something minimal with threading support, fossil scm [2] includes a forum. You can checkout the forum for fossil itself which is powered by fossil. [1] https://fluxbb.org [2] https://fossil-scm.org/ [3] https://fossil-scm.org/forum/forummain. - Source: Hacker News / about 4 years ago
  • Looking for a place to find friends?
    Also quick suggestion maybe you should look at https://fluxbb.org/ I found it on Arch Linux forums and it seems to work well. Source: about 4 years ago

What are some alternatives?

When comparing Discourse and FluxBB, you can also consider the following products

Flarum - Flarum is the next-generation forum software that makes online discussion fun. It's simple, fast, and free.

XenForo - Intuitive. Social. Engaging. Fast. XenForo brings a fresh outlook to forum software.

phpBB - Raspberry Pi. The Raspberry Pi is a cheap, credit-card sized computer. The official website uses phpBB for their discussion forums. phpBB is not affiliated with nor responsible for any of the sites listed on the showcase.

Vanilla Forums - Build an engaging community forum using Vanilla's modern cloud forum software.

MyBB - MyBB is a discussion board software that runs on PHP and MySQL

NodeBB - NodeBB Forum Software - A better community platform for the modern web. NodeBB is a next generation forum software that's free and easy to use.