Modern Interface
Discourse provides a clean, intuitive, and responsive user interface that works well on both desktops and mobile devices.
Open Source
Discourse is open source software, allowing for customization, self-hosting, and community contributions, which can reduce costs and increase flexibility.
Rich Features
The platform includes a variety of built-in features such as threaded replies, real-time notifications, and community moderation tools.
Scalability
Discourse is designed to handle small communities as well as large, active forums, making it suitable for a variety of use cases.
Security
Regular updates and a dedicated security team help keep the software secure against vulnerabilities.
Integration and APIs
Discourse offers extensive APIs and integrates well with various other services and plugins, facilitating seamless extensions and automation.
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We have collected here some useful links to help you find out if Discourse is good.
Check the traffic stats of Discourse on SimilarWeb. The key metrics to look for are: monthly visits, average visit duration, pages per visit, and traffic by country. Moreoever, check the traffic sources. For example "Direct" traffic is a good sign.
Check the "Domain Rating" of Discourse on Ahrefs. The domain rating is a measure of the strength of a website's backlink profile on a scale from 0 to 100. It shows the strength of Discourse's backlink profile compared to the other websites. In most cases a domain rating of 60+ is considered good and 70+ is considered very good.
Check the "Domain Authority" of Discourse on MOZ. A website's domain authority (DA) is a search engine ranking score that predicts how well a website will rank on search engine result pages (SERPs). It is based on a 100-point logarithmic scale, with higher scores corresponding to a greater likelihood of ranking. This is another useful metric to check if a website is good.
The latest comments about Discourse on Reddit. This can help you find out how popualr the product is and what people think about it.
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
I hope a lot of sites use Discourse. Its a wonderful piece of forum software. Source: about 3 years ago
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
Https://discourse.org/ is the closest thing Iโve seen to what youโre asking. - Source: Hacker News / over 3 years ago
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
Check out Discourse, there is a WP plugin to connect to your Wordpress if you need it. Source: over 3 years ago
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
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
One recommendation: Use discourse or zulipchat.com/. Source: over 4 years ago
> 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
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
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
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
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
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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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