head to head · open source
Flarum vs bbs-go
Flarum has 16,441 GitHub stars, 1,676 forks, 1 open issues and last shipped 25 days ago. bbs-go has 3,500 stars, 704 forks, 44 open issues and last shipped 7 days ago. Flarum leads on adoption by 370% (16,441 vs 3,500 stars). Flarum is written in PHP under MIT; bbs-go is written in TypeScript under GPL-3.0. Flarum has attracted 10% as many forks as stars, bbs-go 20%. bbs-go 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
| Flarum | bbs-go | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 16K | ★ 3.5K |
| License | MIT | GPL-3.0 |
| Written in | PHP | TypeScript |
| Last push | 2026-10-09 | 2026-10-27 |
| Forks | ⑂ 1.7K | ⑂ 704 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick Flarum if
- You weight community size — 16K stars and counting
- You want the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches PHP
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick bbs-go if
- You want the bbs-go feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the GPL-3.0 license terms
- Your stack matches TypeScript
- You evaluated both and bbs-go fits your workflow better
About Flarum
About Flarum Flarum is a delightfully simple discussion platform for your website. It's fast and easy to use, with all the features you need to run a successful community. It is designed to be: Fast and simple. No clutter, no bloat, no complex dependencies. Flarum is built with PHP so it’s quick and easy to deploy. The interface is powered by Mithril, a performant JavaScript framework with a tiny footprint. Beautiful and responsive. This is forum software for humans. Flarum is carefully designed to be consistent and intuitive across platforms, out of the box. Powerful and extensible. Customize, extend, and…
read the full Flarum overview →
About bbs-go
中文 English 感谢您的支持与鼓励！如果您喜欢这个开源项目，不妨给它点个⭐️⭐️⭐️，您的星星是我们前进的动力 🙏🙏🙏 bbs go 是一个轻量级社区和问答平台，适合搭建论坛、知识库和讨论社区。 官网 官网： 交流社区： Github： Gitee： 演示 前台: 后台: 后台账号密码: 联系我们获取，联系方式： Docker Compose 快速开始 bbs go 提供官方 Docker 镜像，并提供内置 MySQL 或 PostgreSQL 的 Docker Compose 部署方式。 MySQL： PostgreSQL： 启动后访问： 前台： 后台： 安装向导： CI/CD 与自动化部署 本项目使用 GitHub Actions + GHCR（GitHub Container Registry）+ Docker Hub 实现自动化构建与部署，避免在低配服务器上本地编译（2核4G 下 docker build 容易资源不足）。 工作流说明 推送并自动构建 推送后可在仓库 Actions 页查看构建进度，绿勾表示镜像已推送到 GHCR 和 Docker Hub。 服务器上线部署（手动触发，可控可回滚） 服务器拉取最新镜像并重建容器： 脚本会依次完成：拉取镜像 → 校验 compose → 重建容器 → 健康检查（最多 90 秒），失败时输出容器日志便于排查。对应服务器上的 compose 文件为…
read the full bbs-go overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Flarum or bbs-go more popular?
Flarum has 16,441 GitHub stars and bbs-go has 3,500. Flarum has the larger community by that measure.
Are Flarum and bbs-go free?
Both are open source. Flarum is licensed under MIT and bbs-go under GPL-3.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between Flarum and bbs-go?
Flarum is written in PHP and bbs-go in TypeScript. The practical differences are community size, licence terms, language stack and release cadence — all compared in the table above.
Which should I choose, Flarum or bbs-go?
Choose Flarum if you want the larger community (16,441 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose bbs-go if its feature set, stack or GPL-3.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.