Creators & Serial Entrepreneurs

Discourse on Your Platform

The forum software powering Linux, Ruby on Rails, Ember.js, and thousands of communities.
Topics, categories, moderation tools, search — all running on your platform. Your community, fully yours.

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Open source. Self-hosted. Yours forever.

20k+

GitHub stars and growing

300k+

Communities powered worldwide

Linux

Foundation trusts it

We use Discourse ourselves

We run Discourse on our own Ecomposable platform for community discussions. We chose it because it's the most advanced, secure, and scalable forum software available. We recommend it to you for the same reasons.

What You Get

Features: Open Source vs Enterprise

Open Source Version

Free. Self-hosted. What most communities use.

  • Topics and categories with nested subcategories

  • Rich text editor with Markdown support

  • Full-text search across all content

  • User groups, roles, and permissions

  • Moderation tools (flagging, review queues, bulk actions)

  • Tagging system for organizing discussions

  • Email integration (reply via email, notifications)

  • Single Sign-On (SSO) integration

  • Likes, reactions, bookmarks, favorites

  • Polls and surveys

  • Wikis and curated content

  • Mobile-responsive design

  • API access for integrations

  • Plugin system (hundreds of community plugins)

  • Self-hosted on your platform

Discourse.org Premium

Optional. For communities that need managed hosting and priority support.

  • Everything in open source

  • Managed hosting on Discourse infrastructure

  • Priority support from Discourse team

  • SLA guarantees and uptime monitoring

  • Custom theme development

  • Advanced moderation analytics

  • Dedicated onboarding and migration assistance

  • Early access to new features

  • Option: still self-host on your platform with support contract

See It in Action

Discourse on Ecomposable — 3-Minute Demo

Watch how Discourse integrates into your platform, sets up categories, and gives you a powerful community forum.

Our Rationale

Why We Chose Discourse

We evaluate tools strictly. This is why Discourse made the cut.

Trusted by the biggest communities

Linux Foundation, Ruby on Rails, Ember.js, Kubernetes, and thousands of other communities run on Discourse. It is not a hobby project — it is production-grade software trusted by the world's most critical communities.

More than a forum — a community platform

Topics, categories, wikis, polls, email integration, SSO, plugins — Discourse does everything Circle, Discus, and Vanilla Forums do, plus more. Self-hosted on your platform. No monthly per-member fees.

Your community belongs to you

With Circle or other hosted forum platforms, you rent your audience. With Discourse on Ecomposable, your community data, discussions, and membership are fully yours. You can export everything. You can migrate anytime. No vendor lock-in.

Transparent Pricing

What You Pay

No hidden fees. No per-member billing. You pay for what you use.

Discourse on Your Ecomposable Platform

Ecomposable maintenance

Hosting, updates, backups, WAF, SSO integration, support

€400-650/mo Depending on your platform tier

Discourse open source license

GPL v2 — free for self-hosted use €0

Discourse.org premium

Managed hosting or support contract — optional

Contact Discourse.org Billed directly to them, not us

Cloud infrastructure

Pass-through cost + margin (shared across all your tools)

Included In your platform consumption

Getting Started

How to Get Discourse on Your Platform

Whether you are coming from Circle, Discus, or starting fresh — we make it simple.

1. Install

Discourse is installed on your platform in one click from our managed tools catalog. DNS is auto-configured, SSL is included, WAF protection is on by default.

2. Set up your community

Create categories, configure user roles, and customize the look and feel. Discourse's powerful admin panel makes community setup straightforward.

3. Migrate from Circle or Discus

Export your existing community data. Discourse provides import tools to get your topics, users, and content in place. We can assist with the migration if needed.

4. Connect with your workflow

Use Discourse with your existing stack — email, SSO, CI/CD pipelines. Webhooks and API access let you embed community discussions into your broader ecosystem.

About This Project

Discourse Is Open Source. It Depends on Its Users.

Most open source projects that survive at scale share one thing in common: the companies that depend on them keep them alive. Directly or indirectly.

Discourse is no exception. The core team relies on sponsorships, hosting fees, and contributions from organizations like yours. You use this tool. Supporting it is optional — but the ecosystem benefits when users give back.

Visit Discourse.org

How to contribute ?

Donation

Direct financial support for the project. The simplest way to say "this tool matters to us" and fund ongoing development.

  • Donations fund core development

  • Premium hosting supports the project

  • Get managed infrastructure and priority support

Bug reports, documentation

Bug reports, documentation, patches, translations. Every contribution helps, from small fixes to major features.

  • Submit pull requests on GitHub

  • Report bugs or request features

  • Help translate or document

AI & Compute

We're exploring new ways to support open source: AI-assisted contributions, shared compute for CI/testing, and programmatic bug triage. Not ready yet — coming soon.

If you're curious, ask us about the vision.

Ecomposable depends on Discourse too. We run it on our own platform. We support the ecosystem because it supports us. No pressure — just transparency.
We're also building features that let your platform contribute back automatically: AI agents scanning for bugs and submitting fixes, idle compute cycles powering CI/testing for open source projects, fully opt-in and transparent. Details in our AI Contribution Vision.

FAQ

Common Questions

Do I need Discourse.org premium?

Most communities do not. The open source version includes all core features. You only need premium if you want managed hosting, priority support, or custom theme development.

Is my community data really mine?

Yes. Discourse runs on your Ecomposable platform in your siloed environment. The database is yours. You can export everything anytime. We do not access your community data.

Can I upgrade to premium later?

Yes. Start with the open source version. If you later need managed hosting or premium support, you can purchase a plan from Discourse.org and we will help you configure it.

What happens if Discourse shuts down?

Your self-hosted instance keeps working. It is your software, your data. You are not dependent on their hosted service. That is the power of self-hosted open source.

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Marketplace

Find Open source tools and production-ready Packaged Business Capabilities from Ecomposable and third-party developers. Or sell your own tools. An open marketplace — you're never locked in.

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Experts near you or remotly

Certified Partners Network

Specialized help near you or remotely. Developers, architects, consultants you can rely on. Like the AWS partner network, but for Ecomposable. Open. Regional. Not locked into us.

Ready to Own Your Community Platform?

Get Discourse on your Ecomposable platform. Or see the full managed tools catalog.

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Learn, Connect, Build

We do not just provide infrastructure. We provide the playbook, the community.

The tools to build your platform and run your business.

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