Software Alternatives, Accelerators & Startups

Discourse VS Patreon

Compare Discourse VS Patreon and see what are their differences

Discourse logo Discourse

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

Patreon logo Patreon

Patreon enables fans to give ongoing support to their favorite creators.
  • Discourse Landing page
    Landing page //
    2023-06-13
  • Patreon Landing page
    Landing page //
    2023-07-26

Patreon

$ Details
-
Release Date
2013 January
Startup details
Country
United States
State
California
Founder(s)
Jack Conte
Employees
500 - 999

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

Patreon videos

Patreon Review & Tips! You Need to Know!

More videos:

  • Tutorial - How to Setup A Successful Patreon - A Patreon Tutorial
  • Review - What to Know Before Starting Patreon

Category Popularity

0-100% (relative to Discourse and Patreon)
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 Patreon. 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 Patreon

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...

Patreon Reviews

  1. 1

    Thinks of Patreon as a tip jar for your favorite creators. You give them money, they give you something intresting


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)
One of the problems with using Patreon is that you’re building your community on someone else’s platform. Not only is this bad for branding, but it also means you have limited control and no true ownership of your revenue source. And of course, you’re also subject to Patreon’s transaction fees.
11 Patreon Alternatives for Audience Monetization in 2023
That’s everything about using Patreon to get support from your fanbase. Here are some alternatives to Patreon to help you raise funds for your creative pursuits.
Source: www.uscreen.tv
How to Sell Art Online and Make Money From Home
Artists can make money from their art on Patreon through a subscription-based model. Fans pay for exclusive experiences and behind-the-scenes content. Create art on your terms and keep 90% of the profits. Patreon keeps 5%, and transaction fees are around 5% as well. There are a variety of ways you can earn on this platform. I would recommend visiting their site and looking...
10 Best Kajabi Alternatives for 2022: Which One to Use?
Patreon also differs significantly from Kajabi in terms of pricing. Rather than charging a fixed monthly fee, it takes a share of your monthly revenue. It has three plans that cost you 5%, 8%, and 12% of your monthly income.

Social recommendations and mentions

Patreon might be a bit more popular than Discourse. We know about 33 links to it since March 2021 and only 23 links to Discourse. 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 / 2 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 / 2 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 / 6 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 / 9 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 / 9 months ago
View more

Patreon mentions (33)

  • Privacy settings on youtuber's content
    Is it possibly only viewable on patreon.com? Source: 6 months ago
  • Hmm. We’re having trouble finding that site. We can’t connect to the server at www.patreon.com. If you entered the right address, you can: Try again later Check your network connection Check that Firefox has permission to access the web (you might be connected but behind a firewall)
    An error occurred during a connection to patreon.com. Source: 11 months ago
  • Are the chapters on patreon/royalroad the final version?
    Hey Matt, I wake up every morning and open patreon.com to receive my dose of a new chapter to keep me sane. It's been more than 13 days :( with no new chapter. Source: about 1 year ago
  • Can I Get Donations for My Mental Health Site?
    Once the page is up, you can embed links to e.g. BuyMeACoffee.com or patreon.com or even simply Paypal so people can contribute to your blog. However, first of all you need to get traffic to your site. Source: about 1 year ago
  • Next update when?
    You can subscribe to the patreon, https://www.patreon.com/pabloleban, to get early access patch notes on the discord server. Source: about 1 year ago
View more

What are some alternatives?

When comparing Discourse and Patreon, 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.

Ko-fi - Ko-fi offers a friendly way for content creators to get paid for their work.

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

Kickstarter - Kickstarter is the world's largest funding platform for creative projects. A home for film, music, art, theater, games, comics, design, photography, and more.