head to head · open source
Discourse vs Valour
Discourse has 48,046 GitHub stars, 9,058 forks, 221 open issues and last shipped yesterday. Valour has 399 stars, 43 forks, 88 open issues and last shipped 2 days ago. Discourse leads on adoption by 11,942% (48,046 vs 399 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 11%. 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 | ★ 399 |
| License | GPL-2.0 | AGPL-3.0 |
| Written in | Ruby | C# |
| Last push | 2026-11-02 | 2026-11-01 |
| Forks | ⑂ 9.1K | ⑂ 43 |
| 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
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 Valour
Valour Valour is an open source community platform built with .NET and Blazor. Communities are called planets. Each planet can have chat channels, thread feeds, wikis, voice and video calls, roles, an economy, and a village where members walk around and meet. The client supports tabs, splits, and multiple open conversations. Use the app at app.valour.gg or visit valour.gg for the public website. The documentation index covers development, hosting, and architecture. Codebase The web host references the shared client UI. The server serves API and SignalR requests and can serve the browser client and its static…
read the full Valour overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Discourse or Valour more popular?
Discourse has 48,046 GitHub stars and Valour has 399. 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 (48,046 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.