Simple Machines Forum
Free, professional grade software package that allows you to set up your own online community within minutes.
Description from awesome-selfhosted (CC BY-SA 3.0)
Still maintained? Yes: 930 commits in the last 90 days, latest release v2.1.8 (Oct 2026).
Comparisons in Communication - Social Networks and Forums: Twitter alternatives, Facebook Groups alternatives, Reddit alternatives, Disqus alternatives.
At a glance
Simple Machines Forum quick facts
- Health score
- 82/100 GOOD
- Stars
- 755
- Last commit
- yesterday (Oct 2026)
- Latest release
- v2.1.8, Oct 2026
- Licence
- BSD-3-Clause
Top alternatives to Simple Machines Forum
In its own words
The project's README opens: "Contributions to documentation are licensed under CC-by-SA 3. Third party libraries or sets of images are under their own licenses."
Why it ranks here
Health score explained
Simple Machines Forum scores 82/100, #20 of 40 in Communication - Social Networks and Forums: 930 commits in the last 90 days earn 35.0 of 35 points, the latest release (v2.1.8, 19 days ago) earns 25.0 of 25, 755 stars add 11.5 of 20, an active, unarchived repository keeps 10 and no advertised Docker image leaves the final 10 unclaimed. That places it in the good band (70 and above). The biggest shortfall is Docker support, worth 10.0 more points.
Recomputed nightly from the GitHub API. How the score is calculated.
- Commit activity 35.0 / 35
930 commits in 90 days (30+ scores full marks)
- Release recency 25.0 / 25
v2.1.8 released 19 days ago
- Stars 11.5 / 20
755 stars on GitHub (logarithmic)
- Not archived 10.0 / 10
Repository is active
- Docker support biggest shortfall 0.0 / 10
No Docker support advertised
Commit activity
- 930
- Last 90 days
- 1,539
- Last 12 months
- yesterday
- Last push
Ranked #20 of 40 tools in Communication - Social Networks and Forums by health , between MyBB (#19) and Artalk (#21) .
Details
| Licence | BSD-3-Clause |
| Platforms | PHP |
| Latest release | v2.1.8 · 19 days ago |
| Stars | 755 |
| Open issues | 133 |
| Docker | Not advertised |
| Repository | SimpleMachines/SMF ↗ |
Simple Machines Forum vs its top 5 alternatives
Active tools that share a category with Simple Machines Forum (Communication - Social Networks and Forums), scored on the same five terms.
Simple Machines Forum: common questions
Is Simple Machines Forum still maintained?
Simple Machines Forum had 930 commits in the last 90 days and its last push was yesterday; the latest tagged release, v2.1.8, is from 19 days ago. Repoly recomputes this nightly.