head to head · open source
Discourse vs Valour
Discourse has 47,852 GitHub stars, 9,017 forks, 221 open issues and last shipped yesterday. Valour has 397 stars, 39 forks, 88 open issues and last shipped 9 days ago. Discourse leads on adoption by 11,953% (47,852 vs 397 stars). Discourse is written in Ruby under GPL-2.0; Valour is written in C# under AGPL-3.0. Discourse has attracted 19% as many forks as stars, Valour 10%. Discourse was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee.
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 | Valour | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 48K | ★ 397 |
| License | GPL-2.0 | AGPL-3.0 |
| Written in | Ruby | C# |
| Last push | 2026-09-17 | 2026-09-09 |
| Forks | ⑂ 9.0K | ⑂ 39 |
| 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 Valour if
- You want the Valour feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the AGPL-3.0 license terms
- Your stack matches C#
- You evaluated both and Valour 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 Valour
Valour is an open source community platform written in C and .NET with a Blazor client, licensed AGPL 3.0, intended for people who want to run or join social communities — called planets — on infrastructure they control rather than on a vendor's servers.
read the full Valour overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Discourse or Valour more popular?
Discourse has 47,852 GitHub stars and Valour has 397. Discourse has the larger community by that measure.
Are Discourse and Valour free?
Both are open source. Discourse is licensed under GPL-2.0 and Valour under AGPL-3.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between Discourse and Valour?
Discourse is written in Ruby and Valour in C#. 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 Valour?
Choose Discourse if you want the larger community (47,852 stars) or its GPL-2.0 licence terms. Choose Valour if its feature set, stack or AGPL-3.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.