Software Alternatives, Accelerators & Startups

Flarum VS MakerWidget

Compare Flarum VS MakerWidget 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.

MakerWidget logo MakerWidget

An embeddable portfolio for your (side) projects
  • Flarum Landing page
    Landing page //
    2021-07-27
  • MakerWidget Landing page
    Landing page //
    2019-03-20

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.

MakerWidget features and specs

  • User-Friendly Interface
    MakerWidget offers a highly intuitive and easy-to-navigate interface, making it accessible for users of all skill levels.
  • Customization Options
    The platform provides extensive customization features, allowing users to tailor widgets to fit their specific needs and branding.
  • Integration Capabilities
    MakerWidget supports integration with a wide range of third-party applications, enhancing its functionality in various environments.
  • Responsive Design
    Widgets created with MakerWidget are responsive, ensuring optimal performance and appearance across different device types and screen sizes.
  • Comprehensive Support
    The platform offers robust customer support, including tutorials and a responsive help desk, to assist users in navigating any challenges.

Possible disadvantages of MakerWidget

  • Limited Free Version
    The free version of MakerWidget offers limited features and capabilities, which may not be sufficient for all users.
  • Learning Curve
    While the interface is user-friendly, certain advanced features may require a learning curve for new users.
  • Pricing
    The pricing structure of MakerWidget can be on the higher side, which might be a consideration for smaller businesses or individual users.
  • Feature Overload
    Some users might find the extensive range of features overwhelming, especially if they are only looking for basic functionality.
  • Performance Issues
    Occasional performance issues may occur, such as slow loading times, especially when integrating complex or multiple widgets.

Analysis of Flarum

Overall verdict

  • Yes, Flarum is considered a good forum software by many users.

Why this product is good

  • Flarum is praised for its simplicity, modern interface, and lightweight design. It offers a smooth and fast user experience, and its extensible architecture allows for easy customization through plugins. The open-source nature ensures that the community can contribute to its development, continually improving the platform.

Recommended for

  • Communities looking for a modern and sleek forum solution
  • Developers who want a customizable and extensible platform
  • Organizations seeking a community-driven, open-source solution
  • Users who prefer lightweight and fast-loading web applications

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)

MakerWidget videos

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

Add video

Category Popularity

0-100% (relative to Flarum and MakerWidget)
Forums And Forum Software
Maps
0 0%
100% 100
Forums
96 96%
4% 4
Web App
0 0%
100% 100

User comments

Share your experience with using Flarum and MakerWidget. 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 MakerWidget

Flarum Reviews

  1. GraceyMartin
    ยท employ at Digital Marketing ยท
    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...

MakerWidget Reviews

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

Based on our record, Flarum seems to be more popular. It has been mentiond 38 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.

Flarum mentions (38)

  • Slack is extorting us with a $195k/yr bill increase
    Lots of criticism here but feels like a community that would have been better served by spinning up a forum server or something along those lines. These are pretty easy to get going. Cheers! https://www.discourse.org/ https://flarum.org/ https://www.simplemachines.org/. - Source: Hacker News / 10 months ago
  • 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 / over 1 year ago
  • Ask HN: User communities that aren't Discord?
    Flarum is a really nice open source forum https://flarum.org/. - Source: Hacker News / about 2 years ago
  • Stop Using Discord
    Load quicker than Discourse and feel snappy. [0]: https://flarum.org/. - Source: Hacker News / about 2 years 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 2 years ago
View more

MakerWidget mentions (0)

We have not tracked any mentions of MakerWidget yet. Tracking of MakerWidget recommendations started around Mar 2021.

What are some alternatives?

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

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

Maker.rocks - A shareable profile that sums you up as a maker ๐Ÿ‘จโ€๐Ÿ’ป๐Ÿ› ๐Ÿ‘ฉโ€๐Ÿ’ป

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.

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

Sidemake - Side-projects by makers with day-jobs at top tech companies.

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.