Discourse

Community forum software with discussion topics, built-in chat, themes and plugins, which you can host yourself or buy as a hosted plan.

48.1k stars, 9.1k forks Ruby On GitHub since January 2013

Visit website View on GitHub How to run it

Discourse at a glance

Open sourceYes, GPL-2.0No paid parts in the repository
Health73 of 100Actively developed
Self-hostingDocker imageOne-click in YunoHost and Proxmox VE Helper-Scripts
Interface43 languagesIncluding English, German and French
Release rhythm1 release in 12 monthsLatest: _gh-attach-assets, 15 July 2026

What is Discourse?

Discourse is a discussion platform for running an online community: members start topics, reply in threads and talk in real time through a built-in chat. Its look can be changed with official and community themes, and plugins extend it, from AI chatbots in Discourse AI to SQL queries through the Data Explorer. The back end is a Rails API that returns JSON, the front end is an Ember.js app, and data lives in PostgreSQL with Redis as a cache. The interface is translated into 43 languages, and it supports current browsers on desktops, tablets and phones.

Good fit if

  • You are moving a product, open-source or customer community off a paid forum service and want full control of the data.
  • You want long-form threads and live chat in one place.
  • You plan to extend the site with plugins and custom themes.

Look elsewhere if

  • You prefer a simpler forum under the permissive MIT license: Flarum.
  • You want a federated microblogging network instead of a forum: Mastodon.

Before you adopt it

Discourse is licensed under GPL-2.0 or later, and the repository has no paid parts; its company sells official hosting plans, including a free tier, for those who skip self-hosting. Discourse asks contributors to sign a contributor license agreement. A large team develops it, with about 26 authors active in recent months. Self-hosting uses a single install command plus the official install guide, and needs Ruby, PostgreSQL 18 or newer and Redis 7. There are no tagged releases on GitHub.

Drafted with AI from the project's README and repository data, then checked against that data on 7 November 2026. Report a correction

How to run Discourse yourself

One-click install

Not listed in Umbrel, TrueNAS, Unraid, CasaOS, Runtipi and Coolify. Checked against each panel’s app catalog on 12 November 2026.

Ways to install

Docker files
None in the repository
Docker image
discourse/discourse: 172k pulls · x86-64, ARM64 · 622 MB download
Compose file
None in the repository
Setup effort
Not rated: no compose file to judge from
Kubernetes
No Helm chart in the repository
Desktop and mobile
No app builds in GitHub releases
Interface languages
43 languages, including English, German, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, Polish, Russian, Ukrainian and Turkish
Show all 43

Albanian, Arabic, Armenian, Bosnian, Bulgarian, Catalan, Chinese, Croatian, Czech, Danish, Dutch, English, Estonian, Finnish, French, Galician, German, Greek, Hebrew, Hungarian, Japanese, Korean, Latvian, Lithuanian, Norwegian Bokmål, Persian, Polish, Portuguese, Romanian, Russian, Serbian, Slovak, Slovenian, Spanish, Swahili, Swedish, Telugu, Thai, Turkish, Ukrainian, Urdu, Uyghur, Vietnamese

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

Discourse health: is it still maintained?

73 of 100, actively developed

Release rhythm1 release in 12 monthsLatest: _gh-attach-assets, 15 July 2026
Issue repliesNot measuredToo few recent issues from outside the team
Bus factorLow riskThe most active of 24 authors wrote 15% of recent commits
  • Activity
    2,187 commits in the last 90 days, the latest on 12 November 2026.
    30 / 30
  • Contributors
    24 people wrote the latest 100 commits; the most active wrote 15% of them.
    19 / 20
  • Releases
    1 release in the last 12 months; the latest, _gh-attach-assets, on 15 July 2026.
    10 / 20
  • Replies to issues
    Too few recent issues from outside the team to measure, so this part gets a neutral score.
    10 / 20
  • Security practices
    OpenSSF Scorecard 4.2 of 10.
    4 / 10

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

Discourse 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 advisories1,000 published10 critical, 260 high; all list a fixed version
OpenSSF Scorecard4.2 of 10How the project is built and released
Security policyYesExplains how to report a vulnerability
Signed releasesNoDownloads cannot be checked against a signature

Latest advisories

All 1,000 advisories on GitHub

What each Scorecard check found

  • Binary files10 / 10No compiled binaries checked into the repository
  • Code review10 / 10Changes are reviewed before merge
  • License file10 / 10A license file is present
  • Maintained10 / 10Steady commits and issue activity in the last 90 days
  • Security policy10 / 10Explains how to report a vulnerability
  • Branch protection5 / 10Rules on the main branch are partly enforced
  • Best-practices badge0 / 10No OpenSSF Best Practices badge
  • Dangerous workflows0 / 10GitHub Actions workflows have risky patterns
  • Fuzzing0 / 10No fuzz testing found
  • Pinned dependencies0 / 10Dependencies are not pinned to fixed versions
  • Signed releases0 / 10Releases are not signed
  • Static analysis0 / 10No static analysis found
  • Token permissions0 / 10CI tokens have broad write rights

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

Discourse license: is it open source?

Discourse uses GPL-2.0, an open-source license approved by the OSI. Contributors sign a contributor license agreement, which lets the owner relicense their work later.

  1. January 2013First published on GitHub.
  2. TodayGPL-2.0. A contributor license agreement is required.

Discourse for developers

Written in

  • Ruby 60%
  • JavaScript 31%
  • TypeScript 3%
  • SCSS 2%
  • HTML 2%
  • Other 1%

Getting involved

Contributing guideYesCONTRIBUTING.mdOpen issues0On GitHub
Authors, 90 days24Of the latest 100 commits

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

Alternatives to Discourse

  • 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
  • Issoa Disqus alternative 52 health · MIT · 5.3k stars
  • FlarumSimple forum software for building great communities. 41 health · MIT · 16.4k stars
  • MastodonYour self-hosted, globally interconnected microblogging community 88 health · AGPL-3.0 · 50.6k stars

All 18 projects in Social networks & forums

Questions about Discourse

Is Discourse open source?

Yes. Discourse is published under GPL-2.0, an OSI-approved open-source license.

Is Discourse still maintained?

Its health score is 73 of 100 (actively developed). It had 2,187 commits in the last 90 days, the latest on 12 November 2026, and its latest release came out on 15 July 2026.

How do I run Discourse?

You can run it with the Docker image discourse/discourse and in one click from YunoHost and Proxmox VE Helper-Scripts. The README on GitHub has the exact steps.

What is Discourse written in?

Discourse is written mainly in Ruby (60% of the code), with JavaScript (31%), by GitHub’s count of the repository.

What languages is Discourse available in?

The repository has interface translations for 43 languages, including English, German, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, Polish and Russian.

What are the alternatives to Discourse?

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