Talkyard 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?
Talkyard
Community forum combining discussion, chat and Q&A
VS
SMF
Simple Machines Forum community bulletin board
| Feature | Talkyard | SMF |
|---|---|---|
| Category | Forums & Community | Forums & Community |
| License | AGPL-3.0 | BSD-3-Clause |
| Language | TypeScript | PHP |
| Setup difficulty | Medium | Easy |
| Min. RAM | 2,048 MB | 256 MB |
| Deployment | docker, source | docker, bare-metal, source |
| GitHub stars | ★ 1,811 | ★ 745 |
| First released | 2016 | 2004 |
| Replaces | Discourse, Disqus | vBulletin, phpBB |
Why pick each one
Frequently asked questions
Is Talkyard or SMF better?
Neither is universally better. Talkyard 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 Talkyard and SMF free and open-source?
Yes. Talkyard is licensed under AGPL-3.0 and SMF under BSD-3-Clause. Both can be self-hosted at no software cost.
Can I run Talkyard and SMF with Docker?
Talkyard: yes. SMF: yes.