head to head · open source
Discourse vs jivejdon
Discourse has 47,852 GitHub stars, 9,017 forks, 221 open issues and last shipped yesterday. jivejdon has 588 stars, 160 forks, 5 open issues and last shipped 5 days ago. Discourse leads on adoption by 8,038% (47,852 vs 588 stars). Discourse is written in Ruby under GPL-2.0; jivejdon is written in Java under Apache-2.0. Discourse has attracted 19% as many forks as stars, jivejdon 27%. Discourse was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 1 topic tag (forum), so they are genuine substitutes rather than adjacent tools.
Two open source projects, one decision. Both are free and self-hostable — the differences are community size, license terms, language stack and release pace.
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Side by side
| Discourse | jivejdon | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 48K | ★ 588 |
| License | GPL-2.0 | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | Ruby | Java |
| Last push | 2026-09-17 | 2026-09-13 |
| Forks | ⑂ 9.0K | ⑂ 160 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick Discourse if
- You weight community size — 48K stars and counting
- You want the GPL-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Ruby
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick jivejdon if
- You want the jivejdon feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Java
- You evaluated both and jivejdon fits your workflow better
About Discourse
Discourse is a free, open source community discussion platform, built in Ruby on Rails and licensed under GPL 2.0, for organisations and communities that want complete control over how and where their forum is run rather than renting a hosted service.
read the full Discourse overview →
About jivejdon
Jivejdon is a Java, Apache 2.0 licensed chain notebook and knowledge system that combines DDD, domain events, event sourcing, CQRS and clean/hexagonal architecture to link blog and forum posts into a knowledge graph — built for enterprises and teams that want to run their own internal knowledge system rather than a flat publishing CMS.
read the full jivejdon overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Discourse or jivejdon more popular?
Discourse has 47,852 GitHub stars and jivejdon has 588. Discourse has the larger community by that measure.
Are Discourse and jivejdon free?
Both are open source. Discourse is licensed under GPL-2.0 and jivejdon under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between Discourse and jivejdon?
Discourse is written in Ruby and jivejdon in Java. The practical differences are community size, licence terms, language stack and release cadence — all compared in the table above.
Which should I choose, Discourse or jivejdon?
Choose Discourse if you want the larger community (47,852 stars) or its GPL-2.0 licence terms. Choose jivejdon if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.