Compare / Discourse vs Flarum
Discourse vs Flarum
Pick Discourse if you want the published Circle / GitHub Discussions / Discourse Cloud stack. Pick Flarum if you want that lighter MIT PHP forum.
Facts checked 25 Oct 2026. License, language, and GitHub activity come from the catalog or the project's own repo. "Not in the catalog row" means the public catalog dump does not store that number.
Discourse in the catalog Flarum in the catalog Start on Railway
How they compare
| Discourse | Flarum | |
|---|---|---|
| License | GPL-2.0 (catalog) source | MIT (catalog) source |
| Language | Ruby (catalog) | PHP (catalog) |
| GitHub activity | 48,009 stars in the catalog; last push 25 Oct 2026 source | 6,761 stars in the catalog on flarum/framework; last push 24 Oct 2026 source |
| Self-host | Published as /stacks/discourse-community. Postgres, Redis, Sidekiq, uploads. | Same stack. Lighter PHP forum. |
| Best for | The published Discourse Cloud / Discussions replacement. | A smaller MIT forum if Discourse is not the shape. |
Self-hosting and resource needs
Both sit on /stacks/discourse-community. Discourse is discourse/discourse. Flarum's code is flarum/framework (the flarum/flarum repo is the skeleton). NodeBB is the Node sibling. Neither has a one-click c17 Railway template.
FAQ
- Discourse Cloud or GitHub Discussions?
- Same published self-hosted forum — /replace/discourse-cloud and /replace/github-discussions.
- Is this Discord?
- Chat stays on /replace/discord (Stoat). This pair is a forum.
- Are these free?
- Discourse is GPLv2. Flarum is MIT. You pay hosting.
- How do I deploy Discourse?
- Open /stacks/discourse-community. Persist Postgres, Redis, and uploads.
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