Discourse
Advanced forum / community solution based on Ruby and JS.
Description from awesome-selfhosted (CC BY-SA 3.0)
Still maintained? Yes: 2,045 commits in the last 90 days, latest release _gh-attach-assets (Jul 2026).
Also an alternative to Facebook Groups and Reddit.
At a glance
Discourse quick facts
- Health score
- 99/100 GOOD
- Stars
- 48,031
- Last commit
- today (Oct 2026)
- Latest release
- _gh-attach-assets, Jul 2026
- Licence
- GPL-2.0
Top alternatives to Discourse
Full rankings: Facebook Groups alternatives, Reddit alternatives
In its own words
The project's README opens: "Discourse is a 100% open-source community platform for those who want complete control over how and where their site is run."
Why it ranks here
Health score explained
Discourse scores 99/100, #1 of 40 in Communication - Social Networks and Forums: 2,045 commits in the last 90 days earn 35.0 of 35 points, the latest release (_gh-attach-assets, 4 months ago) earns 25.0 of 25, 48,031 stars add 18.7 of 20, an active, unarchived repository keeps 10 and Docker support adds the final 10. That places it in the good band (70 and above). The biggest shortfall is star count, worth 1.3 more points.
Recomputed nightly from the GitHub API. How the score is calculated.
Health over time
- Commit activity 35.0 / 35
2045 commits in 90 days (30+ scores full marks)
- Release recency 25.0 / 25
_gh-attach-assets released 4 months ago
- Stars biggest shortfall 18.7 / 20
48k stars on GitHub (logarithmic)
- Not archived 10.0 / 10
Repository is active
- Docker support 10.0 / 10
Docker image or Compose file available
Commit activity
- 2045
- Last 90 days
- 7,473
- Last 12 months
- today
- Last push
Ranked #1 of 40 tools in Communication - Social Networks and Forums by health , just above Answer (#2) .
Details
| Licence | GPL-2.0 |
| Platforms | Docker |
| Latest release | _gh-attach-assets · 4 months ago |
| Stars | 48,031 |
| Open issues | 0 |
| Docker | Yes |
| Repository | discourse/discourse ↗ |
Discourse vs its top 5 alternatives
Active tools that share a comparison page or a category with Discourse (Communication - Social Networks and Forums), scored on the same five terms.
Discourse: common questions
What does Discourse replace?
Repoly lists Discourse as an open-source alternative to Facebook Groups and Reddit. Each comparison page ranks every alternative by the same health score, so you can see where Discourse stands against the others.
Is Discourse still maintained?
Discourse had 2,045 commits in the last 90 days and its last push was today; the latest tagged release, _gh-attach-assets, is from 4 months ago. Repoly recomputes this nightly.
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