[opensourcedex]

best-of ranking · updated nightly

Best Open Source Community Platforms Tools

Ranked by GitHub stars — actual adoption, not editorial taste. All 10 are free, open source and self-hostable; license and last activity on every entry.

  1. 1
    Discourse ★ 48K

    Cultivate vibrant online communities with ease

    GPL-2.0 Ruby pushed 2026-09-17 details →
  2. 2
    Flarum ★ 16K

    Modern forum software for vibrant online communities

    MIT PHP pushed 2026-08-27 details →
  3. 3
    answer ★ 16K

    A Q&A platform software for teams at any scales. Whether it's a community forum, help center, or knowledge management platform, you can always count on Apache A

    Apache-2.0 Go pushed 2026-09-15 details →
  4. 4
    paopao-ce ★ 4.5K

    A scalable social community platform powered by Gin backend and modern TypeScript/Vue frontend architecture

    MIT Go pushed 2026-08-03 details →
  5. 5
    homeland ★ 3.9K

    :circus_tent: An open source forum/community system based on Rails, developed based on Ruby China.

    MIT Ruby pushed 2026-08-08 details →
  6. 6
    bbs-go ★ 3.5K

    A lightweight community and Q&A platform for forums, knowledge bases, and discussions.一个轻量级社区和问答平台。

    GPL-3.0 TypeScript pushed 2026-08-25 details →
  7. 7
    symphony ★ 2.9K

    🎶 一款用 Java 实现的现代化社区（论坛/问答/BBS/社交网络/博客）系统平台。A modern community (forum/Q&A/BBS/SNS/blog) system platform implemented in Java. https://ld246.com

    AGPL-3.0 Java pushed 2026-09-09 details →
  8. 8
    Misago ★ 2.8K

    Misago is fully featured modern forum application that is fast, scalable and responsive.

    GPL-2.0 Python pushed 2026-09-17 details →
  9. 9
    kun-galgame-forum ★ 2.0K

    🐳 The CUTEST visualnovel / galgame forum! Built with Nuxt4, GO Fiber and PostgreSQL. Kun Visual Novel forum 6th generation! 开源, 免费, 零门槛, 最先进的 Galgame 论坛社区!

    AGPL-3.0 Go pushed 2026-09-16 details →
  10. 10
    scoold ★ 923

    The Stack Overflow clone for your team (self-hosted or hosted)

    Apache-2.0 Java pushed 2026-09-15 details →
method stars desc · snapshot from github api refresh nightly related Blogging & Personal Sites, Learning Management Systems (LMS), Publishing, Content Management Systems (CMS), Digital Asset Management (DAM), Documentation & Knowledge Base

Related best-of lists

best Blogging & Personal Sites →best Learning Management Systems (LMS) →best Publishing →best Content Management Systems (CMS) →best Digital Asset Management (DAM) →best Documentation & Knowledge Base →

last updated nightly · ranking method: github stars, live-tracked

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Frequently asked questions

What is the best open source Community Platforms tool in 2026?

Discourse leads the ranking with 47,852 GitHub stars, ahead of Flarum. Rankings use live GitHub star counts, refreshed nightly.

How is this list of Community Platforms tools ranked?

By GitHub stars — a proxy for adoption and community size. Each entry also shows its licence, primary language and last commit date, so you can judge maintenance activity rather than trusting the ranking alone.

Are the best Community Platforms tools free?

Every project on this list is open source and free to self-host. Some also offer paid managed hosting, but the software itself carries no licence fee.