SMF vs Utterances
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
Utterances
Comments widget powered by GitHub issues
| Feature | SMF | Utterances |
|---|---|---|
| Category | Forums & Community | Forums & Community |
| License | BSD-3-Clause | MIT |
| Language | PHP | TypeScript |
| Setup difficulty | Easy | Easy |
| Min. RAM | 256 MB | 32 MB |
| Deployment | docker, bare-metal, source | bare-metal, source |
| GitHub stars | ★ 745 | ★ 9,696 |
| First released | 2004 | 2018 |
| Replaces | vBulletin, phpBB | Disqus |
Why pick each one
Choose Utterances if…
- Released under the MIT license
- Easy to set up — beginner-friendly
- Mature project with 9.7k GitHub stars
- Written in TypeScript
Frequently asked questions
Is SMF or Utterances better?
Neither is universally better. Utterances has the larger community; both share a easy setup difficulty, so the decision comes down to features and licensing.
Are SMF and Utterances free and open-source?
Yes. SMF is licensed under BSD-3-Clause and Utterances under MIT. Both can be self-hosted at no software cost.
Can I run SMF and Utterances with Docker?
SMF: yes. Utterances: check the project docs for container support.