head to head · open source
Discourse vs scoold
Discourse has 47,852 GitHub stars, 9,017 forks, 221 open issues and last shipped yesterday. scoold has 923 stars, 227 forks, 7 open issues and last shipped 3 days ago. Discourse leads on adoption by 5,084% (47,852 vs 923 stars). Discourse is written in Ruby under GPL-2.0; scoold is written in Java under Apache-2.0. Discourse has attracted 19% as many forks as stars, scoold 25%. 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 | scoold | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 48K | ★ 923 |
| License | GPL-2.0 | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | Ruby | Java |
| Last push | 2026-09-17 | 2026-09-15 |
| Forks | ⑂ 9.0K | ⑂ 227 |
| 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 scoold if
- You want the scoold 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 scoold 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 scoold
Scoold is an Apache 2.0 licensed, self hostable Q&A and knowledge sharing platform for teams and organizations that want a Stack Overflow style space for internal questions and answers.
read the full scoold overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Discourse or scoold more popular?
Discourse has 47,852 GitHub stars and scoold has 923. Discourse has the larger community by that measure.
Are Discourse and scoold free?
Both are open source. Discourse is licensed under GPL-2.0 and scoold under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between Discourse and scoold?
Discourse is written in Ruby and scoold 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 scoold?
Choose Discourse if you want the larger community (47,852 stars) or its GPL-2.0 licence terms. Choose scoold if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.