Software Alternatives & Reviews

Discourse VS Reddit

Compare Discourse VS Reddit and see what are their differences

Discourse logo Discourse

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

Reddit logo Reddit

Reddit gives you the best of the internet in one place. Get a constantly updating feed of breaking news, fun stories, pics, memes, and videos just for you.
  • Discourse Landing page
    Landing page //
    2023-06-13
  • Reddit Landing page
    Landing page //
    2023-07-26

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

Reddit videos

Bitcoin Reddit Review - DELUSIONAL

More videos:

  • Review - 5000 IQ IS REQUIRED TO WATCH /r/iamverysmart/ #4 [REDDIT REVIEW]
  • Review - Dank Memes #59 [REDDIT REVIEW]

Category Popularity

0-100% (relative to Discourse and Reddit)
Forums
47 47%
53% 53
Social Networks
3 3%
97% 97
Forums And Forum Software
Social Network
0 0%
100% 100

User comments

Share your experience with using Discourse and Reddit. For example, how are they different and which one is better?
Log in or Post with

Reviews

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

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...

Reddit Reviews

  1. reddit review

    i like reddit very much

    🏁 Competitors: Hyprland
    👍 Pros:    Bad|Stupid
    👎 Cons:    I love reddit

25+ Medium Alternative Platforms for Publishing Articles
Reddit is an American social media service that has a community of readers called Redditors. These readers can submit content to the site in the form of links, text posts, images, and videos.
Source: forgefusion.io
Alternatives to Deferendum
Facebook, Twitter, Reddit, and Quora: While these social media platforms provide opportunities for discussion and debate, Deferendum offers a more structured approach to group decision-making. Deferendum allows members to focus on specific problems and solutions, and provides a transparent process for voting and decision-making.
Source: deferendum.com
The 85+ Best Sites to Find a Remote Job (Bookmark this!)
Like Reddit, Facebook is a social network but there’s still a variety of Facebook groups you can use to find remote work. There are specific groups for different industries (e. g. writing jobs), so just enter your keyword and you’ll find a position in no time.
The Top Social Networking Sites People Are Using
Reddit AMAs are another cool feature, which allow users to ask questions to celebs and other public figures who agree to host one. Reddit works by displaying submitted links that get voted up or down by users. The ones that receive the most upvotes will get pushed to the first page of their subreddits.
Top 15 Most Popular Social Networking Sites and Apps [February 2018]
Again, on this graph you can see the three large circles dominating the rest. Only Twitter and Reddit battling it out for the fourth space seem to come close to the top 3. However, in Russia VK has a huge penetration, dominating the Russian speaking world as Facebook does globally.

Social recommendations and mentions

Based on our record, Reddit seems to be a lot more popular than Discourse. While we know about 3294 links to Reddit, we've tracked only 23 mentions of 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 / about 1 month 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 / about 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 / 5 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 / 8 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

Reddit mentions (3294)

  • Balls-a-Lot
    If you keep disclosing my name on reddit.com I'm gonna be in your walls. Source: 5 months ago
  • I'm new why doesn't this work
    Unless somehow your PC has some specific lock against letting you browse to reddit.com. Source: 5 months ago
  • I'm a terrible person.
    This post is kind of a social experiment because I noticed if I sprinkled a mild amount of douchebaggery in my clips people would talk about it and the post gets engagement and whatnot, went out to commit a crime and post it to reddit.com to see what happens. Source: 5 months ago
  • Opening a web link using a Steam library shortcut?
    In the bottom left of the Steam client click on "Add game" -> "Add Non-Steam game". Search the list for your preferred browser, select it and click on "Add selected applications". Right-click the entry for your browser in your library, click on "Properties". In Start options, enter the URL for the website you need to open, e.g. https://reddit.com Rename the entry however you want. Source: 5 months ago
  • Humiliation
    Humiliation makes you angry so you go on reddit.com and make a pathetic post that ultimately humiliates you? you're very smart. Source: 5 months ago
View more

What are some alternatives?

When comparing Discourse and Reddit, 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.

X (Twitter) - Connect with your friends and other fascinating people. Get in-the-moment updates on the things that interest you. And watch events unfold, in real time, from every angle.

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.

Facebook - Connect with friends, family and other people you know. Share photos and videos, send messages and get updates.

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

Quora - Quora is a place to gain and share knowledge. It's a platform to ask questions and connect with people who contribute unique insights and quality answers.