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# Flarum: An Open-Source Community Platform Like Discourse
- URL: https://itsfoss.com/news/flarum/
- Published: 2023-09-02T04:25:45.000Z
- Updated: 2023-09-02T04:25:45.000Z
- Description: Flarum can be a better, simpler, or an innovative alternative to Discourse. Learn more about it here.
- Author: Sourav Rudra
- Tags: First Look, News, #Import 2025-11-08 21:15

Another day, another first look 😎

This time, we have an **alternative to the open-source forum software Discourse** called “**Flarum**.” It aims to offer a **simple (yet customizable) discussion platform for websites** that is free, fast, and easy to use.

Flarum is also **highly extensible**, allowing for significant customization.

Of course, the more open-source options we have, the better, right?

Let's take a look at it and see what it offers.

## Flarum: Overview ⭐

![a screenshot of flarum's website banner](https://itsfoss.com/content/images/2023/08/Flarum_1.png)

Flarum is a **combined successor of the now-defunct** [**esoTalk**](https://github.com/esotalk/esoTalk?ref=itsfoss.com) **and** [**FluxBB**](https://github.com/fluxbb/fluxbb?ref=itsfoss.com) **forum software** suites. It offers a good feature-set while keeping optimization and fast performance in mind.

Written primarily in the PHP programming language. It is **maintained/governed by volunteers** and **relies on contributions from the community** to fuel its development.

Some of its key highlights include:

- **Highly optimized**
- **Responsive User Interface**
- **Mobile-First approach**
- **Very flexible**

💡

Flarum and Discourse both have different tech stacks, and both have subtle but useful feature differences.   
  
For instance, Discourse timeline control functionality was inspired by Flarum. 

## Initial Impressions 👨‍💻

I started testing by visiting Flarum's [official forum](https://discuss.flarum.org/?ref=itsfoss.com) by using my GitHub account to log in. 

Post login, I was brought to the **homepage** which featured all the discussions with their relevant tags, and the number of replies on them.

The **header menu** had the usual **search bar**, with options to **check drafts**, **notifications**, **a menu with the username/avatar**, and a **few important settings**.

![a screenshot of flarum's homepage view](https://itsfoss.com/content/images/2023/08/Flarum_2.png)

The homepage also featured a **sidebar menu** with options to start a new discussion, access tags, and view private discussions.

I must say I did find some similarities to Discourse. But, that's not a bad thing at all! 

There was a familiar timeline scroller that allowed me to jump to different replies in the post.

![a screenshot of flarum's post reading experience](https://itsfoss.com/content/images/2023/08/Flarum_3.png)

Such a cute little marsupial!

Then there's the “**Follow**” button that allows for **three distinct settings**. One was the default, with no notifications, the other was for getting post notifications, and the last one was to ignore a post.

![a screenshot of flarum's post following experience](https://itsfoss.com/content/images/2023/08/Flarum_4.png)

Thereafter, I looked at how one could **interact with a post reply**. It had three options, one was to 'Reply' to the post, one was to 'Like' it, and the last one was to 'Flag' it for the moderators to take a look at.

![a screenshot of flarum's post reacting experience](https://itsfoss.com/content/images/2023/08/Flarum_5.png)

The **post-replying experience** was also quite neat, with a live preview being shown above the editor. It also showed options to save the reply as a draft, minimize the editor, go into full-screen editing, and close the editor.

![a screenshot of flarum's post replying experience](https://itsfoss.com/content/images/2023/08/Flarum_6-1.png)

Finally, I took a look at the **user settings**, and it includes all the usual settings with fine control over notifications. It also showed what third-party accounts were linked to my Flarum account.

![a screenshot of flarum's profile settings experience](https://itsfoss.com/content/images/2023/08/Flarum_7.png)

Overall, it mimics the comfort that you get with the already-popular Discourse with **useful feature differences and a tech stack that is easy to install and manage.**

Flarum receives updates regularly, and its development has come a long way since it all began. It is also one of the best [open-source forum software](https://itsfoss.com/open-source-forum-software/) for Linux servers, and that shows.

**Suggested Read** 📖

[11 Open-Source Forum Software That You Can Deploy on Your Linux ServersLooking to have a community forum or customer support portal? Here are some of the best open-source forum software you can deploy on your servers. Just like our It’s FOSS Community forum, it is important to always build a platform where like-minded people can discuss, interact, and seek support…![](https://itsfoss.com/content/images/size/w256h256/2022/12/android-chrome-192x192.png)It's FOSSAnkush Das![](https://itsfoss.com/content/images/wordpress/2020/12/open-source-forum-software.png)](https://itsfoss.com/open-source-forum-software/)

## 📥 Get Flarum

You can either **self-host Flarum** by following the instructions mentioned in the [official documentation](https://docs.flarum.org/install?ref=itsfoss.com), or you could opt for '[Free Flarum](https://freeflarum.com/?ref=itsfoss.com)', a **free community service** that is not affiliated with the Flarum team.

At the moment, they do not offer any premium hosting plans.

[Flarum](https://flarum.org/?ref=itsfoss.com)

You could also take a look at the source code by visiting its [GitHub repo](https://github.com/flarum/flarum?ref=itsfoss.com).

Seeing that we are on the topic of forums, why don't you consider joining ours?

[It’s FOSS CommunityA place for desktop Linux users and It’s FOSS readers![](https://itsfoss.community/uploads/default/optimized/1X/f274f9749e3fd8b4d6fbae1cf90c5c186d2f699c_2_180x180.png)It's FOSS Community![](https://itsfoss.community/uploads/default/original/1X/f274f9749e3fd8b4d6fbae1cf90c5c186d2f699c.png)](https://itsfoss.community/?ref=itsfoss.com)

The folks over here are helpful, and there's a vast number of topics that you can go through.

*💬 What are your thoughts on Flarum? Will you be giving it a try?*