Coral vs SMF
A side-by-side comparison of two self-hosted forums & community options — licensing, setup difficulty, resource needs, and what each one replaces.
Not the right match-up?
Coral
Open-source commenting platform for newsrooms
VS
SMF
Simple Machines Forum community bulletin board
| Feature | Coral | SMF |
|---|---|---|
| Category | Forums & Community | Forums & Community |
| License | Apache-2.0 | BSD-3-Clause |
| Language | TypeScript | PHP |
| Setup difficulty | Medium | Easy |
| Min. RAM | 1,024 MB | 256 MB |
| Deployment | docker, bare-metal | docker, bare-metal, source |
| GitHub stars | ★ 1,996 | ★ 745 |
| First released | 2016 | 2004 |
| Replaces | Disqus, Facebook Comments | vBulletin, phpBB |
Why pick each one
Choose Coral if…
- Released under the Apache-2.0 license
- First-class Docker support for quick deployment
- Active community (2k GitHub stars)
- Written in TypeScript
Frequently asked questions
Is Coral or SMF better?
Neither is universally better. Coral has the larger community, while SMF is simpler to set up (easy difficulty). Choose based on the comparison table above and your own setup.
Are Coral and SMF free and open-source?
Yes. Coral is licensed under Apache-2.0 and SMF under BSD-3-Clause. Both can be self-hosted at no software cost.
Can I run Coral and SMF with Docker?
Coral: yes. SMF: yes.