Software Alternatives, Accelerators & Startups

Flarum VS Apache Answer

Compare Flarum VS Apache Answer and see what are their differences

Flarum logo Flarum

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

Apache Answer logo Apache Answer

A Q&A platform software for teams at any scales. Whether it’s a community forum, help center, or knowledge management platform, you can always count on Answer.
  • Flarum Landing page
    Landing page //
    2021-07-27
  • Apache Answer Home Page of Apache Answer on Desktop
    Home Page of Apache Answer on Desktop //
    2024-04-17
  • Apache Answer Post Page on Laptop
    Post Page on Laptop //
    2024-04-17
  • Apache Answer Profile Page on Desktop
    Profile Page on Desktop //
    2024-04-17
  • Apache Answer Home Page on Mobile
    Home Page on Mobile //
    2024-04-17
  • Apache Answer Profile Page on Mobile
    Profile Page on Mobile //
    2024-04-17
  • Apache Answer Answer Page on Mobile
    Answer Page on Mobile //
    2024-04-17

Flarum features and specs

  • Modern Design
    Flarum features a sleek, user-friendly interface designed for modern web aesthetics and accessibility. This makes it appealing and easy to use for community members.
  • Extensibility
    Flarum is highly extensible with a robust plugin system, allowing users to customize and expand its functionalities via extensions created by the community or custom-developed.
  • Fast Performance
    Built with performance in mind, Flarum is lightweight and optimized for speed, ensuring a smooth user experience.
  • Mobile Friendly
    Flarum is fully responsive, allowing for seamless use across various devices, including tablets and smartphones.
  • Open Source
    Flarum is an open-source project, which means you can contribute to its development, audit its code, and use it without licensing fees.

Possible disadvantages of Flarum

  • Early Development Stage
    Flarum is still relatively new and in continuous development, which might mean encountering occasional bugs or missing features that are available in more mature platforms.
  • Limited Documentation
    Documentation is still growing, and there may be gaps that can make it challenging for new users or developers to fully utilize all features or develop new extensions.
  • Smaller Community
    Compared to more established forum software, Flarum has a smaller user and developer community, which can result in fewer available resources, themes, and extensions.
  • Hosting Requirements
    Flarum requires a modern hosting environment with PHP and Composer support, which might not be available with all web hosts and can complicate the setup process for non-technical users.
  • Learning Curve
    Due to its modern architecture and use of Composer for extensions, there is a steeper learning curve for users unfamiliar with these technologies.

Apache Answer features and specs

  • Question & Answer
    Submit and answer questions effortlessly.
  • Real-time Preview with Markdown
    Create your content and see formatting as you type with intuitive Markdown side by side, compatible with CommonMark.
  • Ping an Expert
    Notify relevant users in the community who might have the answer for a quicker response.
  • Advanced Search
    Find the content you’re looking for quickly with filtering options and tag, username, score, etc.
  • Real-Time Suggestions
    Discover relevant questions as you type, and jump right to it.
  • Admin/Moderator/User Roles
    Manage user access levels for optimal control.
  • Add Bulk Users
    Add multiple users at once and expand the community efficiently.
  • Tagging System
    Organize the content with the tags for both efficient categorization and easy navigation.
  • Open Editing and Collaboration
    Everyone can edit existing questions, answers, and tags to keep the content accurate and up-to-date.
  • Transparent Revision History
    Every edit made can be tracked and stored for reference, allowing users to see how the content has evolved over time.
  • Voting System
    Build a better community with your voice: upvote the great answers, and downvote those doesn’t.
  • Reputation System
    Earn recognition with contributions and unlock privileges in the community.
  • Notification
    Always get notified of new comments, answers, invites, votes, and more.
  • Follow Tags
    Follow tags and stay in the loop of your favorite Q&A.
  • User Profile
    Show expertise, interests, and contributions to the community with pride.
  • Themes and Layouts
    Customize the online community to match your identity.
  • Plugins
    Empower your Answer with plugins built by the community, such as third-party login, cache, search, etc.
  • Login Access Control
    Take control of registrations, login methods, and allowed email domains to create a secure environment for the community.
  • Content Access Control
    Content is accessible to the community members only, keeping the community discussions safe.
  • Multilingual
    Build and host your community in different languages translated by the community
  • Responsive Layout
    Join the community conversation seamlessly from any device.
  • Dark Mode
    Personalize community experience to stay concentrated.
  • Separation of front-end and back-end
    A monorepo that contains both the frontend and the backend.

Flarum videos

How to Install Flarum Extensions to Super-Charge Forum?

More videos:

  • Tutorial - Custom pages that open modals and discussion composer (Flarum beta7 extension tutorial)

Apache Answer videos

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

Add video

Category Popularity

0-100% (relative to Flarum and Apache Answer)
Forums And Forum Software
Forums
100 100%
0% 0
Knowledge Management
0 0%
100% 100
Community Platform
100 100%
0% 0

Questions and Answers

As answered by people managing Flarum and Apache Answer.

Which are the primary technologies used for building your product?

Apache Answer's answer:

Answer is built with Golang and Typescript.

What's the story behind your product?

Apache Answer's answer:

Answer is a knowledge-based Q&A platform software suitable for teams of any size. It was open-sourced by the SegmentFault team on the first day it launches. In October 2023, it passed the vote and was accepted to the Apache Software Foundation (ASF) Incubator.

We aim to help every team create their Q&A community, gather collective intelligence, and drive industry progress. You can use Answer for free to create your Q&A platform, whether it's for a community forum, a help center, or a knowledge management platform. You always own your community, and it's for FREE.

Why should a person choose your product over its competitors?

Apache Answer's answer:

It's FREE. It's easy to start, it's safe, and you always own your community.

What makes your product unique?

Apache Answer's answer:

It's open source, and it embraces an open editing and collaboration spirit. It's an online home for you and your community members. Through asking and answering, you'll build a powerful knowledge net, and a thriving community where everyone matters.

How would you describe your primary audience?

Apache Answer's answer:

Apache Answer is built for teams at any scales. No matter it's for team discussion, knowledge base, or support center, online forum, we always keep you in a good company.

User comments

Share your experience with using Flarum and Apache Answer. 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 Flarum and Apache Answer

Flarum Reviews

  1. GraceyMartin
    · employ at Digital Marketing ·
    BPM Counter

    BPM Counter analyzes the tempo of incoming audio in beats per minute (bpm). The detection circuit looks for any transients, also known as impulses, in the input signal. Transients are very fast, nonperiodic sound events in the attack portion of the signal. The more obvious this impulse is, the easier it is for BPM Counter to detect the tempo.


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...

Apache Answer Reviews

We have no reviews of Apache Answer yet.
Be the first one to post

Social recommendations and mentions

Based on our record, Flarum seems to be a lot more popular than Apache Answer. While we know about 37 links to Flarum, we've tracked only 1 mention of Apache Answer. 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.

Flarum mentions (37)

  • Looking for the best forum software to start a new forum community in 2025
    Flarum is great [1]. Looks good, works on mobile, continuously updated. Try it out. Edit: Oh wow, downvoted for posting a good recommendation? 1: https://flarum.org/. - Source: Hacker News / 4 months ago
  • Ask HN: User communities that aren't Discord?
    Flarum is a really nice open source forum https://flarum.org/. - Source: Hacker News / 10 months ago
  • Stop Using Discord
    Load quicker than Discourse and feel snappy. [0]: https://flarum.org/. - Source: Hacker News / 11 months ago
  • Posthog is closing their Slack community in favor of forum
    From a user perspective I really like Flarum https://flarum.org/ Some example forums that use flarum: Flarum itself: https://discuss.flarum.org/ GrapheneOS: https://discuss.grapheneos.org/ Kagi and Orion: https://kagifeedback.org/ https://orionfeedback.org/ Mailcow: https://community.mailcow.email/ Many more can be found here: https://builtwithflarum.com/. - Source: Hacker News / over 1 year ago
  • Introducing the new Godot Forum
    Nice! I kinda wish they went with https://flarum.org/ instead of discourse, though. I think Flarum is the better forum software and it is also open source. Source: over 1 year ago
View more

Apache Answer mentions (1)

  • Logto in action: Integrate Apache Answer to launch a community for your users
    Apache Answer is an open-source Q&A platform that connects users and teams. It creates a space for sharing knowledge and solving problems together. The platform features real-time Markdown preview, advanced search, and a voting system for content. - Source: dev.to / 8 days ago

What are some alternatives?

When comparing Flarum and Apache Answer, you can also consider the following products

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

Stack Overflow for Teams - Everything you love about Stack Overflow in a private space.

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

Obsidian.md - A second brain, for you, forever. Obsidian is a powerful knowledge base that works on top of a local folder of plain text Markdown files.

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.

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.