Forem
Forums & CommunityOpen source community platform behind DEV
Replaces Discourse, Reddit
Best Free Forums & Community for self-hosting
The 31 best Free forums & community you can self-host, ranked by community traction.
giscus
Forums & CommunityCommenting system powered by GitHub Discussions
Replaces Disqus
Utterances
Forums & CommunityComments widget powered by GitHub issues
Replaces Disqus
Lobsters
Forums & CommunityComputing-focused link aggregation and discussion site
Replaces Reddit, Hacker News
Fider
Forums & CommunityOpen platform for collecting and voting on feedback
Replaces Canny, UserVoice
Commento
Forums & CommunityPrivacy-friendly embeddable discussion widget
Replaces Disqus, Facebook Comments
FlaskBB
Forums & CommunityForum software written with Flask
Replaces phpBB
Laravel.io
Forums & CommunitySelf-hosted forum built on the Laravel framework
Replaces phpBB
Coral
Forums & CommunityOpen-source commenting platform for newsrooms
Replaces Disqus, Facebook Comments
Schnack
Forums & CommunityLightweight self-hosted commenting system
Replaces Disqus, Facebook Comments
Question2Answer
Forums & CommunityFree open-source Q&A platform in PHP
Replaces Stack Overflow, Quora
esoTalk
Forums & CommunitySimple, fast forum software for online discussion
Replaces phpBB, Discourse
Tildes
Forums & CommunityNon-profit community discussion platform
Replaces Reddit
Mouthful
Forums & CommunityLightweight self-hosted commenting engine
Replaces Disqus
django-machina
Forums & CommunityForum engine for Django applications
Replaces phpBB
Lainchan
Forums & CommunityImage board engine forked from vichan
Replaces 4chan-style boards
Discuit
Forums & CommunityOpen-source community discussion platform
Replaces Reddit
YAF.NET
Forums & CommunityOpen-source forum software for ASP.NET
Replaces phpBB, vBulletin
FluxBB
Forums & CommunityFast, light and user-friendly forum application
Replaces phpBB
Shapado
Forums & CommunityOpen-source question and answer community software
Replaces Stack Overflow, Quora
PunBB
Forums & CommunityFast and lightweight PHP-powered discussion board
Replaces phpBB
ElkArte
Forums & CommunityModern, free community forum software
Replaces SMF, phpBB
Lemmy-Easy-Deploy
Forums & CommunityStreamlined deployment scripts for Lemmy
Replaces Reddit
Discourse-compatible Antville
Forums & CommunityLong-running community and weblog hosting platform
Replaces WordPress, phpBB
FUDforum
Forums & CommunityFast, scalable, customizable open-source forum
Replaces phpBB, vBulletin
Throat
Forums & CommunitySelf-hosted Reddit-style community platform
Replaces Reddit
Phorum
Forums & CommunityLightweight, mature PHP message board software
Replaces phpBB
bbPress
Forums & CommunityLightweight forum software that integrates with WordPress
Replaces phpBB, vBulletin
Flarum Tags Extension
Forums & CommunityOfficial tagging extension for Flarum forums
Replaces vBulletin categories
Discuz! X
Forums & CommunityWidely used Chinese-origin community forum system
Replaces phpBB, vBulletin
phpBB mChat
Forums & CommunityShoutbox extension for phpBB forums
Replaces vBulletin chatbox
No apps match these filters.
At a glance
| App | Deploy effort | Difficulty | Min. RAM | License | ★ Stars |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Forem | Under-an-hour setup | Hard | 2,048 MB | AGPL-3.0 | 22,796 |
| giscus | Read-the-docs project | Easy | 64 MB | MIT | 12,154 |
| Utterances | Read-the-docs project | Easy | 32 MB | MIT | 9,695 |
| Lobsters | Read-the-docs project | Medium | 512 MB | BSD-3-Clause | 4,851 |
| Fider | Under-an-hour setup | Easy | 256 MB | AGPL-3.0 | 4,578 |
| Commento | Under-an-hour setup | Easy | 128 MB | MIT | 3,778 |
| FlaskBB | Read-the-docs project | Medium | 256 MB | BSD-3-Clause | 2,667 |
| Laravel.io | Read-the-docs project | Medium | 256 MB | MIT | 2,500 |
| Coral | Under-an-hour setup | Medium | 1,024 MB | Apache-2.0 | 2,000 |
| Schnack | Read-the-docs project | Easy | 128 MB | MIT | 1,812 |
Quick picks
- Most adopted: Forem (22,796 GitHub stars).
- Lightest footprint: Utterances (from 32 MB RAM, against 2,048 MB for the heaviest here).
- Licensing: 9 of 31 use MIT; check the rest individually if you plan to modify and redistribute.
Every option here is open-source and self-hostable, tagged Free within the forums & community category. Deploy effort is graded from published container recipes, not vendor claims — see the methodology.