Forums & Community

Build community with self-hosted forum and discussion software, alternatives to Discourse.

45 self-hosted apps · 622 comparisons

All forums & community apps

Forem

Forums & Community

Open source community platform behind DEV

Replaces Discourse, Reddit

★ 22.8k Hard setup AGPL-3.0

Answer

Forums & Community

Modern Q&A platform for building knowledge communities

Replaces Stack Overflow, Confluence

★ 15.6k Easy setup Apache-2.0

giscus

Forums & Community

Commenting system powered by GitHub Discussions

Replaces Disqus

★ 12k Easy setup MIT

Spectrum

Forums & Community

Open-source platform for building online communities

Replaces Discord, Discourse

★ 10.8k Hard setup BSD-3-Clause

Utterances

Forums & Community

Comments widget powered by GitHub issues

Replaces Disqus

★ 9.7k Easy setup MIT

Lobsters

Forums & Community

Computing-focused link aggregation and discussion site

Replaces Reddit, Hacker News

★ 4.8k Medium setup BSD-3-Clause

Fider

Forums & Community

Open platform for collecting and voting on feedback

Replaces Canny, UserVoice

★ 4.5k Easy setup AGPL-3.0

Commento

Forums & Community

Privacy-friendly embeddable discussion widget

Replaces Disqus, Facebook Comments

★ 3.8k Easy setup MIT

FlaskBB

Forums & Community

Forum software written with Flask

Replaces phpBB

★ 2.7k Medium setup BSD-3-Clause

Laravel.io

Forums & Community

Self-hosted forum built on the Laravel framework

Replaces phpBB

★ 2.5k Medium setup MIT

Coral

Forums & Community

Open-source commenting platform for newsrooms

Replaces Disqus, Facebook Comments

★ 2k Medium setup Apache-2.0

Schnack

Forums & Community

Lightweight self-hosted commenting system

Replaces Disqus, Facebook Comments

★ 1.8k Easy setup MIT

Talkyard

Forums & Community

Community forum combining discussion, chat and Q&A

Replaces Discourse, Disqus

★ 1.8k Medium setup AGPL-3.0

Question2Answer

Forums & Community

Free open-source Q&A platform in PHP

Replaces Stack Overflow, Quora

★ 1.7k Easy setup GPL-3.0

Askbot

Forums & Community

Django-based question and answer forum software

Replaces Stack Overflow

★ 1.6k Medium setup GPL-3.0

esoTalk

Forums & Community

Simple, fast forum software for online discussion

Replaces phpBB, Discourse

★ 1.5k Easy setup GPL-2.0

MyBB

Forums & Community

Free and extensible community forum software

Replaces vBulletin, phpBB

★ 1.2k Easy setup LGPL-3.0

Tildes

Forums & Community

Non-profit community discussion platform

Replaces Reddit

★ 1k Hard setup AGPL-3.0

Scoold

Forums & Community

Self-hosted Q&A platform and Stack Overflow alternative

Replaces Stack Overflow

★ 920 Medium setup Apache-2.0

Mouthful

Forums & Community

Lightweight self-hosted commenting engine

Replaces Disqus

★ 774 Easy setup MIT

vichan

Forums & Community

Lightweight image board software

Replaces 4chan-style boards

★ 770 Medium setup Tinyboard

SMF

Forums & Community

Simple Machines Forum community bulletin board

Replaces vBulletin, phpBB

★ 745 Easy setup BSD-3-Clause

django-machina

Forums & Community

Forum engine for Django applications

Replaces phpBB

★ 604 Medium setup BSD-3-Clause

PieFed

Forums & Community

Federated discussion and link aggregation platform

Replaces Reddit

★ 600 Medium setup AGPL-3.0

Lainchan

Forums & Community

Image board engine forked from vichan

Replaces 4chan-style boards

★ 594 Medium setup Tinyboard

YAF.NET

Forums & Community

Open-source forum software for ASP.NET

Replaces phpBB, vBulletin

★ 548 Medium setup Apache-2.0

Discuit

Forums & Community

Open-source community discussion platform

Replaces Reddit

★ 546 Medium setup AGPL-3.0

Lemmy-UI Alternative Photon

Forums & Community

Modern alternative web client for Lemmy instances

Replaces Reddit

★ 542 Easy setup AGPL-3.0

FluxBB

Forums & Community

Fast, light and user-friendly forum application

Replaces phpBB

★ 541 Easy setup GPL-2.0

Shapado

Forums & Community

Open-source question and answer community software

Replaces Stack Overflow, Quora

★ 527 Hard setup AGPL-3.0

Codidact

Forums & Community

Community-driven Q&A knowledge-sharing platform

Replaces Stack Overflow, Stack Exchange

★ 439 Medium setup AGPL-3.0

AnsPress

Forums & Community

Question and answer community plugin for WordPress

Replaces Stack Overflow, Quora

★ 296 Easy setup GPL-3.0

JForum

Forums & Community

Java-based community discussion board

Replaces phpBB

★ 224 Medium setup BSD-3-Clause

PunBB

Forums & Community

Fast and lightweight PHP-powered discussion board

Replaces phpBB

★ 197 Easy setup GPL-2.0

ElkArte

Forums & Community

Modern, free community forum software

Replaces SMF, phpBB

★ 187 Easy setup BSD-3-Clause

Lemmy-Easy-Deploy

Forums & Community

Streamlined deployment scripts for Lemmy

Replaces Reddit

★ 146 Easy setup MIT

Discourse Chat Integration

Forums & Community

Bridge Discourse notifications to chat platforms

Replaces Forum email digests

★ 100 Easy setup MIT

Discourse-compatible Antville

Forums & Community

Long-running community and weblog hosting platform

Replaces WordPress, phpBB

★ 91 Hard setup Apache-2.0

FUDforum

Forums & Community

Fast, scalable, customizable open-source forum

Replaces phpBB, vBulletin

★ 80 Medium setup GPL-2.0

Throat

Forums & Community

Self-hosted Reddit-style community platform

Replaces Reddit

★ 77 Medium setup MIT

Phorum

Forums & Community

Lightweight, mature PHP message board software

Replaces phpBB

★ 67 Medium setup PHP-3.01

bbPress

Forums & Community

Lightweight forum software that integrates with WordPress

Replaces phpBB, vBulletin

★ 49 Easy setup GPL-2.0

Flarum Tags Extension

Forums & Community

Official tagging extension for Flarum forums

Replaces vBulletin categories

★ 38 Easy setup MIT

Discuz! X

Forums & Community

Widely used Chinese-origin community forum system

Replaces phpBB, vBulletin

★ 25 Medium setup GPL-3.0

phpBB mChat

Forums & Community

Shoutbox extension for phpBB forums

Replaces vBulletin chatbox

★ 14 Easy setup GPL-2.0

Curated picks

Easiest Forums & Community to self-host Best API Forums & Community Best Docker Forums & Community Best Free Forums & Community Best Lightweight Forums & Community Best Multi-User Forums & Community Best Plugins Forums & Community Best PostgreSQL Forums & Community Best Real-Time Forums & Community Best SQLite Forums & Community

Forums & Community comparisons

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