Forem 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?
Forem
Open source community platform behind DEV
VS
SMF
Simple Machines Forum community bulletin board
| Feature | Forem | SMF |
|---|---|---|
| Category | Forums & Community | Forums & Community |
| License | AGPL-3.0 | BSD-3-Clause |
| Language | Ruby | PHP |
| Setup difficulty | Hard | Easy |
| Min. RAM | 2,048 MB | 256 MB |
| Deployment | docker, source | docker, bare-metal, source |
| GitHub stars | ★ 22,760 | ★ 745 |
| First released | 2019 | 2004 |
| Replaces | Discourse, Reddit | vBulletin, phpBB |
Why pick each one
Choose Forem if…
- Released under the AGPL-3.0 license
- First-class Docker support for quick deployment
- Mature project with 22.8k GitHub stars
- Written in Ruby
Frequently asked questions
Is Forem or SMF better?
Neither is universally better. Forem 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 Forem and SMF free and open-source?
Yes. Forem is licensed under AGPL-3.0 and SMF under BSD-3-Clause. Both can be self-hosted at no software cost.
Can I run Forem and SMF with Docker?
Forem: yes. SMF: yes.