head to head · open source
Discourse vs scoold
Discourse has 48,046 GitHub stars, 9,058 forks, 221 open issues and last shipped yesterday. scoold has 921 stars, 228 forks, 7 open issues and last shipped 1 months ago. Discourse leads on adoption by 5,117% (48,046 vs 921 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.
← all 20902 open source comparisons
Side by side
| Discourse | scoold | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 48K | ★ 921 |
| License | GPL-2.0 | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | Ruby | Java |
| Last push | 2026-11-02 | 2026-09-29 |
| Forks | ⑂ 9.1K | ⑂ 228 |
| 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
The online home for your community. You can self host Discourse on your own infrastructure. But if you'd rather skip the setup, maintenance, and server management, we offer official Discourse hosting. 👉 Learn more about Discourse hosting Discourse is a 100% open source community platform for those who want complete control over how and where their site is run. Our platform has been battle tested for over a decade and continues to evolve to meet users’ needs for a powerful community platform. With Discourse, you can: 💬 Create discussion topics to foster meaningful conversations. ⚡️ Connect in real time with…
read the full Discourse overview →
About scoold
The most effective way to share knowledge within your team or organization Scoold is a Q&A and a knowledge sharing platform for teams, inspired by Stack Overflow. Scoold is enterprise ready, super customizable and lightweight. Scoold Pro , the premium version of Scoold, is the perfect knowledge sharing platform for your company or team. The pricing is flat, without limits, the license perpetual. Are you still paying per seat in 2026? Scoold Pro is the knowledge sharing platform to migrate to! Website Documentation Demo Compare Features API Scoold open source knowledge sharing platform Scoold is a Q&A and a…
read the full scoold overview →
More in Content & Publishing
Related comparisons
More Community Platforms projects
Compare either of these against the rest of the Community Platforms field.
Frequently asked questions
Is Discourse or scoold more popular?
Discourse has 48,046 GitHub stars and scoold has 921. 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 (48,046 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.