Discourse vs yarn.social
A side-by-side comparison of two self-hosted social networks options — licensing, setup difficulty, resource needs, and what each one replaces.
Not the right match-up?
Discourse
Modern open-source community discussion platform
VS
yarn.social
Self-Hosted, Twitter™-like Decentralised micro-logging platform
| Feature | Discourse | yarn.social |
|---|---|---|
| Category | Social Networks | Social Networks |
| License | GPL-2.0 | MIT |
| Language | Ruby | Go |
| Setup difficulty | Medium | Medium |
| Min. RAM | 2,048 MB | 512 MB |
| Deployment | docker, source | bare-metal |
| GitHub stars | ★ 47,619 | — |
| First released | 2013 | 2020 |
| Replaces | phpBB, Reddit | — |
Why pick each one
Choose yarn.social if…
- Released under the MIT license
- Written in Go
- Lightweight — runs in 512 MB RAM
Frequently asked questions
Is Discourse or yarn.social better?
Neither is universally better. Discourse has the larger community; both share a medium setup difficulty, so the decision comes down to features and licensing.
Are Discourse and yarn.social free and open-source?
Yes. Discourse is licensed under GPL-2.0 and yarn.social under MIT. Both can be self-hosted at no software cost.
Can I run Discourse and yarn.social with Docker?
Discourse: yes. yarn.social: check the project docs for container support.