head to head · open source
Flarum vs Nameless
Flarum has 16,400 GitHub stars, 1,668 forks, 1 open issues and last shipped 22 days ago. Nameless has 656 stars, 316 forks, 149 open issues and last shipped 15 days ago. Flarum leads on adoption by 2,400% (16,400 vs 656 stars). Flarum is written in PHP under MIT; Nameless is written in PHP under MIT. Flarum has attracted 10% as many forks as stars, Nameless 48%. Nameless was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 2 topic tags (forum, php), 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 | Nameless | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 16K | ★ 656 |
| License | MIT | MIT |
| Written in | PHP | PHP |
| Last push | 2026-08-27 | 2026-09-03 |
| Forks | ⑂ 1.7K | ⑂ 316 |
| 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 Nameless if
- You want the Nameless feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches PHP
- You evaluated both and Nameless fits your workflow better
About Flarum
Flarum is an open source forum software project for building and running online community discussions on a website. It is positioned as a simple discussion platform with a fast interface and a PHP based application, and it is distributed under the MIT License. It lives in the PHP web application ecosystem, and its topics include forum, Laravel, and PHP.
read the full Flarum overview →
About Nameless
NamelessMC is free, open source website software for Minecraft servers, distributed under the MIT license and written in PHP. It lives in the Minecraft server ecosystem as a self hosted content management system, with MySQL as its database and a companion in game plugin that connects the website to a running server. The project is eleven years old, carries roughly 655 stars and 316 forks on GitHub, and is developed under the NamelessMC organisation with a public documentation site at namelessmc.com.
read the full Nameless overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Flarum or Nameless more popular?
Flarum has 16,400 GitHub stars and Nameless has 656. Flarum has the larger community by that measure.
Are Flarum and Nameless free?
Both are open source. Flarum is licensed under MIT and Nameless under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between Flarum and Nameless?
Flarum is written in PHP and Nameless 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, Flarum or Nameless?
Choose Flarum if you want the larger community (16,400 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose Nameless if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.