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Discourse

★ 44k

The internet's civilized discussion platform — modern forums with trust levels and rich moderation.

Discourse does the job of Circle.so, self-hosted. It is GPL-2.0-licensed, a copyleft licence, and setting it up is an afternoon, not a weekend. Circle.so bills $89 for it. 44k stars on GitHub.

Open-source replacement for Circle.so.

Licence
GPL-2.0
Self-hosting
Medium
The paid one costs
$89
GitHub stars
44k
view the code →official site →

Is it actually a replacement?

We have not written a verdict on Circle.so yet, so this page says what Discourse is rather than judging what you would give up. When that product gets a page, this one will link to it.

How Discourse runs

Where it runs

Discourse runs on your machine or their cloud.

Installing it

Use official paid hosting, or run the supported Docker-based production install on a Linux server with a domain and SMTP.

Where your data lives

Topics, posts, users, and settings live in PostgreSQL, transient state in Redis, and uploads on local disk or S3-compatible storage; admins can create full backups.

What setup takes

The free route starts with a Linux server, root access, DNS, SMTP, Docker, backups, security updates, and ongoing moderation configuration.

The catch compared with Bettermode

Discourse is mature and powerful, but it remains forum-first, requires a Ruby/PostgreSQL/Redis stack, and lacks Bettermode's no-code branded portal and business modules.

Discourse questions

Is Discourse open source?

Yes — it is released under GPL-2.0.

Can I self-host Discourse?

Yes — we rate it medium to self-host, and it runs on your machine or their cloud. Use official paid hosting, or run the supported Docker-based production install on a Linux server with a domain and SMTP.

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