Talkyard vs Spectrum
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
Spectrum
Open-source platform for building online communities
| Feature | Talkyard | Spectrum |
|---|---|---|
| Category | Forums & Community | Forums & Community |
| License | AGPL-3.0 | BSD-3-Clause |
| Language | TypeScript | JavaScript |
| Setup difficulty | Medium | Hard |
| Min. RAM | 2,048 MB | 2,048 MB |
| Deployment | docker, source | docker, bare-metal |
| GitHub stars | ★ 1,811 | ★ 10,837 |
| First released | 2016 | 2017 |
| Replaces | Discourse, Disqus | Discord, Discourse |
Why pick each one
Choose Spectrum if…
- Released under the BSD-3-Clause license
- First-class Docker support for quick deployment
- Mature project with 10.8k GitHub stars
- Written in JavaScript
Frequently asked questions
Is Talkyard or Spectrum better?
Neither is universally better. Spectrum has the larger community, while Talkyard is simpler to set up (medium difficulty). Choose based on the comparison table above and your own setup.
Are Talkyard and Spectrum free and open-source?
Yes. Talkyard is licensed under AGPL-3.0 and Spectrum under BSD-3-Clause. Both can be self-hosted at no software cost.
Can I run Talkyard and Spectrum with Docker?
Talkyard: yes. Spectrum: yes.