Software Alternatives, Accelerators & Startups

Discourse

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

Discourse

Discourse Reviews and Details

This page is designed to help you find out whether Discourse is good and if it is the right choice for you.

Screenshots and images

  • Discourse Landing page
    Landing page //
    2023-06-13

Features & Specs

  1. Modern Interface

    Discourse provides a clean, intuitive, and responsive user interface that works well on both desktops and mobile devices.

  2. Open Source

    Discourse is open source software, allowing for customization, self-hosting, and community contributions, which can reduce costs and increase flexibility.

  3. Rich Features

    The platform includes a variety of built-in features such as threaded replies, real-time notifications, and community moderation tools.

  4. Scalability

    Discourse is designed to handle small communities as well as large, active forums, making it suitable for a variety of use cases.

  5. Security

    Regular updates and a dedicated security team help keep the software secure against vulnerabilities.

  6. Integration and APIs

    Discourse offers extensive APIs and integrates well with various other services and plugins, facilitating seamless extensions and automation.

Badges & Trophies

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Videos

Why We Chose The Discourse Platform For Our Forums

Why Discourse is the Best Forum Software Out There (No, Really) | Location Rebel

A Grammar Review for Discourse Analysis

Social recommendations and mentions

We have tracked the following product recommendations or mentions on various public social media platforms and blogs. They can help you see what people think about Discourse and what they use it for.
  • 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 / over 2 years 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 / over 2 years ago
  • My Fediverse use โ€“ I'm hosting everything myself โ€“ 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 / over 2 years 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 / almost 3 years 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 / almost 3 years ago
  • Does Replit Use/Offer a Forum Template?
    It requires more RAM than the base price offers, but the software is Discourse, an open source forum. Https://discourse.org/. Source: about 3 years ago
  • I am also resigning as a moderator and will be joining the "leftit" movement.
    Any way we could get an official Discourse (not discord, Discourse) OSM server going? Its the best forum software I've ever used. Source: about 3 years ago
  • Haven't programmed professionally, but can't we just build a better alternative?
    And the winner is a user with Google that clones the https://discourse.org repository and runs it on a raspberry pi home lab thinking they are a genius. Source: about 3 years ago
  • Reddit api changes DISCCUSION
    I hope a lot of sites use Discourse. Its a wonderful piece of forum software. Source: about 3 years ago
  • Google Groups has been left to die
    5+ years ago I participate on a project who started a community from the ground up using a self-hosted https://discourse.org. The experience was pretty great, the user experience in general is good, onboarding is straight forward, is mobile friendly, it has email and in-app notifications for replies, weekly digests and more. And you own the data! Later down the road, a chat platform was necessary too, and we use... - Source: Hacker News / over 3 years ago
  • Discord, or the Death of Lore
    Https://discourse.org/ is the closest thing Iโ€™ve seen to what youโ€™re asking. - Source: Hacker News / over 3 years ago
  • Looking for Facebook/Nextdoor alternative for Civic League
    Another similar self-hosted forum service is Discourse. I've spun up a couple Discourse servers. It's a little more difficult to get going than the average WordPress website, but has a lot of the groups/forum features you're looking for. They offer a paid service as well. Source: over 3 years ago
  • [HELP] Looking for advice on forum plugins (or stand-alone)
    Check out Discourse, there is a WP plugin to connect to your Wordpress if you need it. Source: over 3 years ago
  • Ask HN: What's on Your Home Server?
    I have a gist for this! # Personal - https://matrix.org (comms) - https://nextcloud.com (general) - https://jellyfin.org (video) - https://mopidy.com (audio) - https://photoprism.app (photos) - https://actualbudget.com (finance) - http://tileserver.org (maps) # Business - https://gitea.io (repos) - https://discourse.org (forums) - https://bestpractical.com/request-tracker (tickets). - Source: Hacker News / over 3 years ago
  • How can you make your React available to be embedded within user's website?
    Thank you for the simple but extremely useful reply! Just to add, a real example of what I want to do would be discourse.org which is used on https://users.rust-lang.org/ On discourse.org price plans, it points out that if you pay 100 dollars you can use custom domains. Would that be possible with your method? I have the feeling it might be more related to devops than React itself. Source: over 3 years ago
  • AOE IV needs a dedicated discussion forum to thrive. Help us make it happen!
    One recommendation: Use discourse or zulipchat.com/. Source: over 4 years ago
  • Ask HN: Software you hate but can't replace?
    > Give me some forum instead That's exactly why Discourse [0] exists. Try it. [0]: https://discourse.org. - Source: Hacker News / over 4 years ago
  • rails multi site with different domains?
    Take a look at this gem - might help you to run it all from a single repository - you can vary the databases by domain. It's used for discourse.org, so it's battle tested. Source: over 4 years ago
  • A new space to celebrate and discuss Bitwig presets and clips
    Bitwish is based on Discourse, a powerful open source platform used by many communities. Bitwish shared recently a short-term roadmap combining the Community Wishlist and the Presets & Clips with other proposals currently lacking in the Bitwig community. Source: over 4 years ago
  • Please stop closing forums and moving people to Discord
    I have seen a lot of companies, sites, non-profits move to Discourse[0]. It is customisable, low-cost, and has a lot of features which makes hosting a forum really easy and effective. This is a nice alyernative to hosting forums yourselves and Discord. [0]: https://discourse.org/. - Source: Hacker News / almost 5 years ago
  • Self hosting a very light weight forum(software recommendations)
    As these things go, "light weight" is always in the eye of the beholder... But I've been running discourse (discourse.org) pretty well for family forums / etc . It claims to need 64 bit OS, 10G space and 1G ram and 1 - 2 cores. I'm running it on a 4G ram, 4 core VM without issue. Source: about 5 years ago

Summary of the public mentions of Discourse

Discourse, a modern forum software, is increasingly popular among tech-savvy users and open-source communities for its flexibility and adaptability. As an open-source platform, it is frequently chosen by communities seeking a self-hosted solution that combines the functionality of traditional mailing lists and modern forums.

Key Features and Popularity

Discourse stands out due to its dual model of deployment. Users can choose between self-hosting the platform, which requires server space and some technical know-how but is cost-effective, or opting for the premium hosted version that absolves users of technical burdens. This flexibility makes Discourse an attractive choice for diverse user groups, ranging from individual hobbyists to expansive open-source projects.

Community and User Experience

A prominent advantage of Discourse is its ability to facilitate structured and organized discussions. It is likened to creating a personalized version of forums such as Reddit or Quora, thereby providing a familiar interface to users accustomed to these platforms. The user experience is further enhanced by its mobile-friendly design, streamlined onboarding process, and the integration of features such as email and in-app notifications, and weekly digests. These attributes are particularly prized by communities migrating from deprecated platforms like Yahoo Groups, looking for something robust yet familiar.

Comparison with Competitors

In the realm of community management and forum software, Discourse holds its ground against competitors like Flarum, phpBB, and Vanilla Forums. While Flarum offers a promising alternative, feedback from users indicates that it is still in beta and thus may present challenges in setup and stability. In contrast, Discourse is often reported as being stable and possessing a modern look and feel, qualities that resonate with users who prioritize a reliable and efficient management platform.

Limitations

However, Discourse is not without its limitations. Primarily text-focused, Discourse lacks integrated video and livestreaming capabilities, distinguishing it from more comprehensive communication platforms like Telegram or Discord. Users seeking these features must consider additional integrations or supplementary platforms.

Use in Various Spaces

Despite these drawbacks, Discourse is regarded highly for its adaptability. It has successfully been employed by a diverse range of applications โ€” from serving as a forum for civic leagues to acting as part of a communication suite on usersโ€™ home servers or for open-source projects. Given its open-source nature, users benefit from community-driven improvements and can customize or extend its features through available plugins and integrations.

In conclusion, Discourse is lauded for its open-source nature, easy self-hosting capabilities, and extensive feature set that supports a modern forum experience. While it lacks some multimedia capabilities, it remains a robust choice among traditional forum software, gaining favor especially amongst users and communities seeking control, flexibility, and a familiar user interface.

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Funding news

    27 Aug 2021
  1. Discourse Announces $20m Series A Investment by Pace Capital and First Round Capital

    blog.discourse.org - Itโ€™s been quite a journey since our seed foundation in 2012 and the launch of Civilized Discourse Construction Kit, Incorporated. In that time, the company has grown from 4 to 54 people, from $0 to over $10 million per year in revenue, and from 0 to 31,000 Discourse instances. You might say weโ€™re a ten year overnight success.

    ๐Ÿ’ฐ Series A

    $20M

    -

    Pace Capital

Is Discourse good? This is an informative page that will help you find out. Moreover, you can review and discuss Discourse here. The primary details have not been verified within the last quarter, and they might be outdated. If you think we are missing something, please use the means on this page to comment or suggest changes. All reviews and comments are highly encouranged and appreciated as they help everyone in the community to make an informed choice. Please always be kind and objective when evaluating a product and sharing your opinion.