Software Alternatives, Accelerators & Startups

Discourse VS Ko-fi

Compare Discourse VS Ko-fi and see what are their differences

Discourse logo Discourse

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

Ko-fi logo Ko-fi

Ko-fi offers a friendly way for content creators to get paid for their work.
  • Discourse Landing page
    Landing page //
    2023-06-13
  • Ko-fi Landing page
    Landing page //
    2018-10-10

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

Ko-fi videos

What is Ko-Fi?

More videos:

  • Review - Artist Tip Jars? | Buy me a Ko-fi Picture | Art Rambles
  • Demo - Ko-fi Intro

Category Popularity

0-100% (relative to Discourse and Ko-fi)
Forums
100 100%
0% 0
Crowdfunding
0 0%
100% 100
Forums And Forum Software
Fundraising And Donation Management

User comments

Share your experience with using Discourse and Ko-fi. 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 Ko-fi

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...

Ko-fi Reviews

8 Best Patreon Alternatives for Creators (2023)
Ko-fi is another Patreon alternative that lets you receive donations and memberships and sell digital or physical items to your fans. It’s free and easy to use, and there are no fees or commissions taken on donations. You can create a page for your project, set up a payment method, and start accepting payments from your fans in minutes.
Source: talkbitz.com
8 Best Patreon Alternatives & Competitors For 2023 (Comparison)
Like Patreon, you can use Ko-fi to accept donations and memberships from your fans. You can create a Ko-fi creator page for free in under a minute. Then, set a crowdfunding goal and encourage your audience to help you reach it. Plus, you can provide incentives like exclusive supporter-only content and membership perks to incentivize people to donate.
11 Patreon Alternatives for Audience Monetization in 2023
You can remove the 5% fee by signing up to Ko-fi Gold for $6 per month — with extra perks like shorter URL handles and the option to change your page colors.
Source: www.uscreen.tv
12+ Brilliant Patreon Alternatives to Monetize Your Audience
At Ko-fi, you can share your work, and fans can support you for the price of a cup of coffee — or more. You can set up donations and commissions on a one-time basis or monthly.
10 Best Patreon Alternatives
If you want three times more income, the Ko-Fi Gold subscription is available for only $6 monthly. The Gold package offers exclusive posts and rewards, commission tools, shorter Ko-Fi username, gallery extras, analytics insights, shorter Ko-Fi name, previews for new features, and a no-ads experience.

Social recommendations and mentions

Based on our record, Ko-fi should be more popular than Discourse. It has been mentiond 91 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 / 3 months 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 / 3 months ago
  • My Fediverse use – I'm hosting everything myself – 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 / 7 months 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 / 10 months 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 / 10 months ago
View more

Ko-fi mentions (91)

  • Show HN: I made a privacy friendly and simple app to track my menstruation
    Doing necessary work. How can I sponsor or otherwise provide fiat for this work? https://buymeacoffee.com/, etc. - Source: Hacker News / about 2 months ago
  • Flattr: 404 – Service No Long Exists
    A few alternatives for micro donations that people have mentioned: https://ko-fi.com/ https://github.com/sponsors https://www.buymeacoffee.com/ Any others, let me know. - Source: Hacker News / 5 months ago
  • Making 3D porn is "easy money"?
    I still have to try https://ci-en.net/, https://slushe.com/, https://ko-fi.com/, https://catbox.moe/, I heard they were possible good alternatives. But I couldn't say, dunno yet. Source: 6 months ago
  • Rogue System Reboot
    I did, however, remember another crowdfunding platform that may be the best of both worlds here (second highest voted so far being Patreon). Ko-fi: it offers both monthly and one-time donations as well as a store where we could sell things like early access keys or things like that. Their fees are very low as well, capping out at 5%. Source: 6 months ago
  • Regarding Somerton's supposed drop in Patreon support earlier this year
    With everything going on with Patreon lately that's probably why I've suddenly started hearing about Ko-fi this year. Source: 6 months ago
View more

What are some alternatives?

When comparing Discourse and Ko-fi, 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.

Buy Me A Coffee - A free, fast and friendly way to accept donations 💰

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.

Patreon - Patreon enables fans to give ongoing support to their favorite creators.

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

Liberapay - Liberapay is a recurrent donations platform.