head to head · open source
Flarum vs nimforum
Flarum has 16,441 GitHub stars, 1,676 forks, 1 open issues and last shipped 25 days ago. nimforum has 786 stars, 71 forks, 129 open issues and last shipped 4 months ago. Flarum leads on adoption by 1,992% (16,441 vs 786 stars). Flarum is written in PHP under MIT; nimforum is written in Nim under MIT. Flarum has attracted 10% as many forks as stars, nimforum 9%. Flarum 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 | nimforum | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 16K | ★ 786 |
| License | MIT | MIT |
| Written in | PHP | Nim |
| Last push | 2026-10-09 | 2026-07-03 |
| Forks | ⑂ 1.7K | ⑂ 71 |
| 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 nimforum if
- You want the nimforum feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches Nim
- You evaluated both and nimforum 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 nimforum
nimforum NimForum is a light weight forum implementation with many similarities to Discourse. It is implemented in the Nim programming language and uses SQLite for its database. Examples in the wild forum.nim lang.org Features Efficient, type safe and clean single page application developed using the Karax and Jester frameworks. Utilizes SQLite making set up much easier. Endlessly customizable using SASS. Spam blocking via new user sandboxing with great tools for moderators. reStructuredText enriched by Markdown to make formatting your posts a breeze. Search powered by SQLite's full text search. Context aware…
read the full nimforum overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Flarum or nimforum more popular?
Flarum has 16,441 GitHub stars and nimforum has 786. Flarum has the larger community by that measure.
Are Flarum and nimforum free?
Both are open source. Flarum is licensed under MIT and nimforum under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between Flarum and nimforum?
Flarum is written in PHP and nimforum in Nim. 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 nimforum?
Choose Flarum if you want the larger community (16,441 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose nimforum if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.