Discourse
A platform for community discussion. Free, open, simple. observed · 2026-08-28
Health v2 · maintenance only
86/100
- Activity 99
- Release rhythm 60
- Longevity 100
Flags: prerelease_only
How is this computed?
round(0.45*activity + 0.35*rhythm + 0.20*longevity); archived -> min(score, 10) — computed 2026-09-03. Adoption (stars, forks) is never an input.
- gap_med: n/a
- age_days: 4982
- days_rel: 49
- days_push: 7
- n_releases_24m: 1
Adoption not part of the score
47735 stars · 9006 forks observed · 2026-08-28
What it is AI-extracted, prompt v1, taxonomy v1, 2026-08-29, confidence not recorded
Discourse is a 100% open-source community discussion platform (forum software) built with Ruby on Rails and Ember.js, featuring built-in real-time chat, theming, plugins, and AI integrations. It can be self-hosted via Docker or used through official managed hosting, and powers over 22,000 communities.
Use cases
- self-host a community forum
- run a customer support community to reduce tickets
- build a developer community with GitHub integration
- collect and prioritize product feedback with voting
- add real-time chat alongside threaded discussions
- create a team workspace with private categories
- migrate from a legacy forum to a modern platform
When to choose
- you want a battle-tested, actively maintained open-source forum with full data ownership
- you need both long-form threaded discussions and real-time chat in one platform
- you need SSO, OAuth2, SAML, and 80+ integrations
- you want extensibility via themes, plugins, and a full API
- you need a scalable platform proven at enterprise scale (OpenAI, Mozilla, NVIDIA)
When to avoid
- you only need lightweight real-time chat without structured topics
- you lack the resources to run a Docker-based deployment with PostgreSQL and Redis
- you need a simple static site or blog rather than a discussion platform
- you want a federated/social-network-style experience like Mastodon or Lemmy
Facets
application · maturity stable
web-framework search-engine auth chat-interface plugin-system api-framework email web-development self-hosted cms developer-tools self-hosted ruby browser forum community-platform discussion ember rails chat sso open-source linux docker web-server postgresql android ios
9 sources
- readme: https://github.com/discourse/discourse · fetched 2026-08-28 · ed0b615344d5
- homepage: https://www.discourse.org · fetched 2026-08-29 · e0291eac296b
- site_page: https://www.discourse.org/about · fetched 2026-08-29 · 7cc17d76eafa
- site_page: https://www.discourse.org/features · fetched 2026-08-29 · 054e5a6d6d15
- site_page: https://www.discourse.org/pricing · fetched 2026-08-29 · b9fe50647a55
- site_page: https://www.discourse.org/enterprise · fetched 2026-08-29 · e0dbe90da54e
- site_page: https://www.discourse.org/wall-of-love · fetched 2026-08-29 · 92c8fc98e306
- site_page: https://www.discourse.org/integrations · fetched 2026-08-29 · 1b2e2b1c3778
- site_page: https://releases.discourse.org/ · fetched 2026-08-29 · f3daff66e0b4
Member repositories
| Repository | Role | Health v2 |
|---|---|---|
| discourse/discourse | main | 86 |
| discourse/discourse_docker | infra | 77 |
For agents
markdown · JSON · MCP: product_card(name="discourse/discourse")
Data as of 2026-08-30T08:39:29.467469+00:00 · Report a problem