Flarum or Discourse - Better Open Source Forum Software?

I’ve been testing Discourse and Flarum for a new community project for a local group. Both are solid open source forum platforms, but take different approaches to community building.

Discourse Vs. Flarum

Discourse or Flarum is really a choice between a heavy, enterprise-ready stack and a lightweight, modern one. Discourse runs on Ruby on Rails, uses PosgreSQL and Redis for cache management. Most community builders deploy it with Docker. Which means, it adds an extra layer of technical complexity for regular users.

Flarum is built with PHP with a Laravel-like backend, is easier to install, lighter and faster for smaller team.

Discourse has added new features like AI and Chat tools; but it relies on plugins for most of its functions like SSO. It does have a good set of moderation tools as well. On the other hand, Flarum features a simple UI and offers a self-hosting plan. The drawback - both software requires the host to take care of bandwidth, security, emails and more.

SEO, Performance and Themes

Flarum feels faster on smaller servers but Discourse performs nicely with better hardware. Discourse SEO is strong because of structured data; but I’m not sure about Flarum SEO.

Customization is easy for Flarum and Discourse seems to require PHD.

Overall - I’m leaning towards Flarum; but open to suggestions. Jatra will always remain our top choice as a forum software; but the new pricing tiers make it beyond our budget for small community.

We’ll begin working on the community in January 2026.