head to head · open source
Flarum vs jivejdon
Flarum has 16,441 GitHub stars, 1,676 forks, 1 open issues and last shipped 25 days ago. jivejdon has 584 stars, 160 forks, 5 open issues and last shipped 3 days ago. Flarum leads on adoption by 2,715% (16,441 vs 584 stars). Flarum is written in PHP under MIT; jivejdon is written in Java under Apache-2.0. Flarum has attracted 10% as many forks as stars, jivejdon 27%. jivejdon 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 | jivejdon | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 16K | ★ 584 |
| License | MIT | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | PHP | Java |
| Last push | 2026-10-09 | 2026-10-31 |
| Forks | ⑂ 1.7K | ⑂ 160 |
| 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 jivejdon if
- You want the jivejdon 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 jivejdon 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 jivejdon
Jivejdon Jivejdon is a chain notebook or chain blog, knowledge graph and knowledge system with DDD + DomainEvents/Event Soucing/CQRS + clean architecture/Hexagonalarchitecture, powered by jdonframework. Features When posting, it provides the function of interlinking posts around keywords/topics, organizing posts together in the form of links. these posts are presented to human readers in a time sequence and to AI readers in a knowledge graph like a theme garden. It is suitable for enterprises to manage their internal knowledge systems, and when combined with intelligent agents, it can serve as the enterprise's…
read the full jivejdon overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Flarum or jivejdon more popular?
Flarum has 16,441 GitHub stars and jivejdon has 584. Flarum has the larger community by that measure.
Are Flarum and jivejdon free?
Both are open source. Flarum is licensed under MIT and jivejdon under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between Flarum and jivejdon?
Flarum is written in PHP and jivejdon 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, Flarum or jivejdon?
Choose Flarum if you want the larger community (16,441 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose jivejdon if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.