head to head · open source
Discourse vs Flarum
Discourse has 48,046 GitHub stars, 9,058 forks, 221 open issues and last shipped yesterday. Flarum has 16,441 stars, 1,676 forks, 1 open issues and last shipped 25 days ago. Discourse leads on adoption by 192% (48,046 vs 16,441 stars). Discourse is written in Ruby under GPL-2.0; Flarum is written in PHP under MIT. Discourse has attracted 19% as many forks as stars, Flarum 10%. 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 | Flarum | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 48K | ★ 16K |
| License | GPL-2.0 | MIT |
| Written in | Ruby | PHP |
| Last push | 2026-11-02 | 2026-10-09 |
| Forks | ⑂ 9.1K | ⑂ 1.7K |
| 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 Flarum if
- You want the Flarum feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches PHP
- You evaluated both and Flarum 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 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 →
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 Flarum more popular?
Discourse has 48,046 GitHub stars and Flarum has 16,441. Discourse has the larger community by that measure.
Are Discourse and Flarum free?
Both are open source. Discourse is licensed under GPL-2.0 and Flarum under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between Discourse and Flarum?
Discourse is written in Ruby and Flarum in PHP. 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 Flarum?
Choose Discourse if you want the larger community (48,046 stars) or its GPL-2.0 licence terms. Choose Flarum if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.