SMF vs Lobsters
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?
SMF
Simple Machines Forum community bulletin board
VS
Lobsters
Computing-focused link aggregation and discussion site
| Feature | SMF | Lobsters |
|---|---|---|
| Category | Forums & Community | Forums & Community |
| License | BSD-3-Clause | BSD-3-Clause |
| Language | PHP | Ruby |
| Setup difficulty | Easy | Medium |
| Min. RAM | 256 MB | 512 MB |
| Deployment | docker, bare-metal, source | bare-metal, source |
| GitHub stars | ★ 745 | ★ 4,814 |
| First released | 2004 | 2012 |
| Replaces | vBulletin, phpBB | Reddit, Hacker News |
Why pick each one
Choose Lobsters if…
- Released under the BSD-3-Clause license
- Active community (4.8k GitHub stars)
- Written in Ruby
- Lightweight — runs in 512 MB RAM
Frequently asked questions
Is SMF or Lobsters better?
Neither is universally better. Lobsters 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 SMF and Lobsters free and open-source?
Yes. SMF is licensed under BSD-3-Clause and Lobsters under BSD-3-Clause. Both can be self-hosted at no software cost.
Can I run SMF and Lobsters with Docker?
SMF: yes. Lobsters: check the project docs for container support.