Coral

Self-hosted comment section for news sites and publishers, from Vox Media, built around moderation tools and healthier reader discussion.

2k stars, 375 forks TypeScript On GitHub since October 2016

Visit website View on GitHub How to run it

Coral at a glance

Open sourceYes, Apache-2.0No paid parts in the repository
Health61 of 100Actively developed
Self-hostingDockerCompose file, 2 services
Interface20 languagesIncluding English, German and French
Issue repliesWithin ~9 hoursMedian first reply; 14% of recent issues answered

What is Coral?

Coral is a commenting system that a publication embeds under its articles in place of a hosted widget. It comes from the Coral team at Vox Media and starts from the view that online comments are broken, so its design focuses on how moderation, comment display and conversation work together. The project publishes community guides for newsrooms preparing to open comments, alongside technical documentation for running and developing the platform. The code is an npm-based monorepo, and the interface is available in 20 languages.

Good fit if

  • You run a news site or magazine and want reader comments on your own servers instead of a third-party embed.
  • Your moderators need tooling to keep reader threads civil.
  • You plan to move existing comments over from another system and connect your own registration.

Look elsewhere if

  • A personal blog needs a lighter comment engine: remark42 or Isso.
  • You want a full forum with categories and long-lived topics: Discourse.

Before you adopt it

Coral is released under the Apache license, and the repository contains no paid parts. Vox Media holds the copyright, and its team sells help with setup, comment migration, registration integration and custom installs. Recent work comes from a small group: 2 authors in the last 90 days, one of them behind about three quarters of the commits, though v9.11.9 shipped on 2026-11-06. A Docker setup is provided, and the compose file adds MongoDB and Redis.

Drafted with AI from the project's README and repository data, then checked against that data on 11 November 2026. Report a correction

How to run Coral yourself

One-click install

Not listed in the app catalogs of Umbrel, YunoHost, TrueNAS, Unraid, CasaOS, Runtipi, Proxmox VE Helper-Scripts and Coolify.

Ways to install

Docker files
Dockerfile or compose file in the repository
Docker image
coralproject/talk: 2.7M pulls · x86-64 · 359 MB download
Compose file
docker-compose.yml: 2 services (redis, mongodb)
Setup effort
2 of 5, judged from the compose file
Kubernetes
No Helm chart in the repository
Desktop and mobile
No app builds in GitHub releases
Interface languages
20 languages, including English, German, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, Polish, Russian, Turkish and Japanese
Show all 20

Afrikaans, Arabic, Chinese, Danish, Dutch, English, Finnish, French, German, Hungarian, Japanese, Norwegian Bokmål, Polish, Portuguese, Romanian, Russian, Slovak, Spanish, Swedish, Turkish

Install instructions: coralproject.net or the README on GitHub. Docker images and packages are checked weekly.

Coral health: is it still maintained?

61 of 100, actively developed

Release rhythmEvery ~14 days13 releases in 12 months; latest v9.11.9
Issue repliesWithin ~9 hoursMedian first reply; 14% of recent issues answered
Bus factorMedium riskThe most active of 2 authors wrote 73% of recent commits
  • Activity
    15 commits in the last 90 days, the latest on 6 November 2026.
    15 / 30
  • Contributors
    2 people wrote the 15 commits of the last 90 days; the most active wrote 73% of them.
    6 / 20
  • Releases
    13 releases in the last 12 months; the latest, v9.11.9, on 6 November 2026.
    19 / 20
  • Replies to issues
    Maintainers answered 14% of recent issues, with a median first reply after 9 hours.
    13 / 20
  • Security practices
    OpenSSF Scorecard 7.5 of 10.
    8 / 10

Read from GitHub on 12 November 2026. How the score works

Coral security

Security advisories are the vulnerabilities the maintainers disclosed on GitHub, with the versions that fix them; many advisories can mean careful disclosure as much as weak code. OpenSSF Scorecard checks how a project is developed and released: reviews, protected branches, pinned dependencies, signed releases. It does not audit the code itself.

Security advisoriesNone publishedNo advisories in the repository’s Security tab
OpenSSF Scorecard7.5 of 10How the project is built and released
Security policyYesExplains how to report a vulnerability

What each Scorecard check found

  • Binary files10 / 10No compiled binaries checked into the repository
  • Code review10 / 10Changes are reviewed before merge
  • Dangerous workflows10 / 10No risky patterns in GitHub Actions
  • Maintained10 / 10Steady commits and issue activity in the last 90 days
  • Packaging10 / 10Releases are published as packages from CI
  • Security policy10 / 10Explains how to report a vulnerability
  • Token permissions10 / 10CI tokens have only the rights they need
  • License file9 / 10A license file is present, but not where tools look for it
  • Best-practices badge0 / 10No OpenSSF Best Practices badge
  • Fuzzing0 / 10No fuzz testing found
  • Pinned dependencies0 / 10Dependencies are not pinned to fixed versions
  • Static analysis0 / 10No static analysis found

Advisories read from GitHub on 12 November 2026. From the OpenSSF Scorecard of 9 November 2026; checks that do not apply to Coral are left out.

Coral license: is it open source?

Coral uses Apache-2.0, an open-source license approved by the OSI.

  1. October 2016First published on GitHub.
  2. TodayApache-2.0.

Coral for developers

Written in

  • TypeScript 70%
  • Fluent 22%
  • CSS 4%
  • FreeMarker 2%
  • JavaScript 2%
  • Other <1%

Getting involved

Contributing guideYesCONTRIBUTING.mdOpen issues53On GitHub
Authors, 90 days2Of 15 commits

Language shares are GitHub’s count of the code in the repository.

Alternatives to Coral

  • NodeBBNode.js based forum software built for the modern web 80 health · GPL-3.0 · 15.2k stars
  • AnswerA Q&A platform software for teams at any scales. Whether it's a community forum, help center, or knowledge… 68 health · Apache-2.0 · 15.7k stars
  • remark42comment engine 81 health · MIT · 5.6k stars
  • DiscourseA platform for community discussion. Free, open, simple. 73 health · GPL-2.0 · 48.1k stars
  • Issoa Disqus alternative 52 health · MIT · 5.3k stars

All 18 projects in Social networks & forums

Questions about Coral

Is Coral open source?

Yes. Coral is published under Apache-2.0, an OSI-approved open-source license.

Is Coral still maintained?

Its health score is 61 of 100 (actively developed). It had 15 commits in the last 90 days, the latest on 6 November 2026, and its latest release came out on 6 November 2026.

How do I run Coral?

You can run it with the Docker image coralproject/talk. The README on GitHub has the exact steps.

What is Coral written in?

Coral is written mainly in TypeScript (70% of the code), with Fluent (22%), by GitHub’s count of the repository.

What languages is Coral available in?

The repository has interface translations for 20 languages, including English, German, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, Polish and Russian.

What are the alternatives to Coral?

Close alternatives in the Social networks & forums category include NodeBB, Answer, remark42.