head to head · open source
Flarum vs scoold
Flarum has 16,400 GitHub stars, 1,668 forks, 1 open issues and last shipped 22 days ago. scoold has 923 stars, 227 forks, 7 open issues and last shipped 3 days ago. Flarum leads on adoption by 1,677% (16,400 vs 923 stars). Flarum is written in PHP under MIT; scoold is written in Java under Apache-2.0. Flarum has attracted 10% as many forks as stars, scoold 25%. scoold 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 | scoold | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 16K | ★ 923 |
| License | MIT | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | PHP | Java |
| Last push | 2026-08-27 | 2026-09-15 |
| Forks | ⑂ 1.7K | ⑂ 227 |
| 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 scoold if
- You want the scoold 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 scoold 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 scoold
Scoold is an Apache 2.0 licensed, self hostable Q&A and knowledge sharing platform for teams and organizations that want a Stack Overflow style space for internal questions and answers.
read the full scoold overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Flarum or scoold more popular?
Flarum has 16,400 GitHub stars and scoold has 923. Flarum has the larger community by that measure.
Are Flarum and scoold free?
Both are open source. Flarum is licensed under MIT and scoold under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between Flarum and scoold?
Flarum is written in PHP and scoold 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 scoold?
Choose Flarum if you want the larger community (16,400 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose scoold if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.