--- title: Discourse Reviews meta_title: 'Discourse Reviews 2026: Details, Pricing, & Features | G2' meta_description: Filter 68 reviews by the users' company size, role or industry to find out how Discourse works for a business like yours. aggregate_rating: rating_value: 4.0 review_count: 68 scale: '5' date_modified: '2026-08-09' parent_category: name: Marketing url: https://www.g2.com/categories/marketing --- # Discourse Reviews **Vendor:** Discourse **Category:** [Online Community Management Software](https://www.g2.com/categories/online-community-management) **Average Rating:** 4.0/5.0 **Total Reviews:** 68 ## About Discourse Discourse helps businesses build trusted online communities where engagement drives retention, support, and knowledge sharing. Designed to scale and easy to adapt, it offers full data control and powerful moderation. ## Discourse Pros & Cons **What users like:** - Users appreciate the **complete feature set** of Discourse, enabling easy data search and effective collaboration. (3 reviews) - Users value the **ease of use** in Discourse, benefiting from seamless navigation and comprehensive database access. (2 reviews) - Users value the **knowledge sharing** capabilities of Discourse, fostering open discussions and collaboration on relevant topics. (2 reviews) - Users value the **intuitive user interaction** of Discourse, making collaboration and communication effortless among team members. (2 reviews) - Users appreciate the **easy-to-use content management features** of Discourse, enhancing collaboration among team members. (1 reviews) - Users value the **extensive customization options** in Discourse, enhancing their forum experience and engagement tracking. (1 reviews) - Customization (1 reviews) - Helpful (1 reviews) - Users find Discourse **intuitive and user-friendly** , enhancing engagement and facilitating easy navigation in discussions. (1 reviews) - Knowledge Management (1 reviews) **What users dislike:** - Users find **duplicate content** problematic in Discourse, hindering their ability to find the latest or verified answers. (1 reviews) - Users face challenges with **duplicate content** and unreliable notifications, complicating information retrieval and validation. (1 reviews) - Users struggle with **irrelevant content** due to duplicate information, complicating their search for validated answers. (1 reviews) - Users find the **limited customization** of Discourse leads to confusing and redundant functionalities in the user interface. (1 reviews) - Users face **notification issues** that hinder communication and complicate the process of finding accurate information. (1 reviews) - Poor Interface Design (1 reviews) - Poor Navigation (1 reviews) - Poor Notifications (1 reviews) - Time-Consumption (1 reviews) ## Discourse Reviews ### 1. Open Source and Customizable, Challenge the Installation **Rating:** 4.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Leonardo C. | Ceo, Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** December 09, 2025 **What do you like best about Discourse?** I mainly use Discourse for forums to interact with my Discord server community, and I also find it useful for more official and informal announcements. I like that Discourse is open source and extremely customizable. I also appreciate the SAML SSO, which is very useful for authenticating users with Discord and synchronizing everything. **What do you dislike about Discourse?** Perhaps the fact that it is difficult to install on a server without help. **What problems is Discourse solving and how is that benefiting you?** I use Discourse mainly for forums and announcements. It solves the collection of feedback from players and offers excellent SAML SSO to authenticate users with Discord and synchronize everything. ### 2. Discourse makes it easy to collaborate on projects **Rating:** 3.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Vishal J. | Software Project Manager, Enterprise (> 1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** June 10, 2025 **What do you like best about Discourse?** The best thing about Discourse is the Channels feature, where members of the project team can collaborate. On channels, users can create new posts, reply to others' posts, and upload attachments. It also has a feature of sending direct messages similar to email messages. The user interface is easy to use and quick to learn for beginners. **What do you dislike about Discourse?** Some functionality is duplicated and confusing. Like, when you click on "DMS" and select a group channel, it is the same as selecting the Group Channel directly. Hence, the feature of using DMS for group chats could be removed and retain DMS only for sending direct messages to individual users. **What problems is Discourse solving and how is that benefiting you?** Discourse is integral to daily project management activities. I can directly interact with each team member, send announcements to all at once, create a dedicated channel for sharing project resources, and send meeting, webinar invitations. Overall, Discourse increases productivity by solving communication needs of the project. ### 3. Comprehensive Platform with a Steep Learning Curve **Rating:** 3.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Marcella D. | Senior Process Executive, Telecommunications, Enterprise (> 1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** December 10, 2025 **What do you like best about Discourse?** I like that Discourse is complete and does not need additional features. I enjoy how I can locate data easily by searching in the main bar and finding topics regarding the information I am looking for. **What do you dislike about Discourse?** It is sometimes too chaotic, it takes some time before I find what I need. **What problems is Discourse solving and how is that benefiting you?** I use Discourse for work chat and project updates. It acts like a general book where shared information is easy to find. I enjoy how I can locate data using the search bar. ### 4. my experience in using Discourse. **Rating:** 4.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Aboelhassan A. | Doctor, Medical Practice, Enterprise (> 1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** November 27, 2024 **What do you like best about Discourse?** It is an extensive database filled with valuable information. Discourse is user-friendly and facilitates open discussions in a forum-style format. It offers significant customization options, allowing the creation of various topics and categories, while also monitoring user engagement. **What do you dislike about Discourse?** Although tagging and searching typically lead me to the information I need, there often appears to be duplicate content, making it difficult to identify the 'newest' or 'validated' answers. Additionally, the notifications occasionally do not function correctly. **What problems is Discourse solving and how is that benefiting you?** respond to customer inquiries and maintain a record of responses similar to Stack Overflow. ### 5. One of the best community and forum building app **Rating:** 4.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Prithvi H. | Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** March 08, 2024 **What do you like best about Discourse?** Discourse is very easy to use and very user friendly. One think I like the most about it is the batches and awards that can be assigned to top contributors. **What do you dislike about Discourse?** Nothing much to dislike here as I really love the product. Their enterprise plans can be a little pricey. **What problems is Discourse solving and how is that benefiting you?** Usually at our organisation we have one as internal users only and one open to the public. People can post their questions and queries and it will be answered by the experts in the market. ### 6. Discourse **Rating:** 4.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Nanotechnology | Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** May 17, 2022 **What do you like best about Discourse?** everything is very good. I have no suggestions. **What do you dislike about Discourse?** Sometimes the notifications do not work properly **What problems is Discourse solving and how is that benefiting you?** answer customer questions and have history of answers kind of like stack overflow **Official Response from André Sousa:** > Thank you for your positive feedback about Discourse! We're delighted to hear that you're satisfied with the platform and that you don't have any suggestions for improvement. Regarding your comment about notifications, we apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused. We understand how important notifications are to keep you informed and up-to-date. We encourage you to check out our Discourse Meta forum, where you can find various posts discussing notification issues and how to resolve them. Our team is continually working to improve the notification system, and we appreciate your feedback, which helps us identify areas for improvement. If you have any further suggestions or concerns, please don't hesitate to let us know. Thank you for choosing Discourse as your preferred communication platform, and we hope to continue providing you with a positive experience. ### 7. Great for sharing news, ideas, and updates **Rating:** 4.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Chris B. | Songwriter and Recording Artist, Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** January 28, 2019 **What do you like best about Discourse?** The Discourse UI is clean and intuitive and very easy to get the hang of. Having had no prior experience with it, I was able to pick it up in a relatively short timeframe. Makes communication a breeze , and the customization options are wonderful for adding brand specific content. **What do you dislike about Discourse?** Honestly not much, some of our computers are a bit older so it definitely took some browser updates to bring them up to speed, but after that, it was smooth sailing. I guess I would say I'm not as in love with the mobile version as I am with the desktop version, but that's more personal preference. **Recommendations to others considering Discourse:** Try the trial first to see if it's a good fit for your group! **What problems is Discourse solving and how is that benefiting you?** Discourse keeps us connected as an organization and makes it easy to update everyone on recent successes / useful tips for initiatives or programs we're all apart of. **Official Response from André Sousa:** > Thank you for sharing your positive experience with Discourse, Chris! It's great to hear that you find the UI clean and intuitive, making communication easy and customization options wonderful for adding brand-specific content. While you encountered some issues with older computers, it's good to know that once updated, Discourse was smooth sailing. It's also understandable that personal preferences may differ, such as with the mobile version. I agree that trying the trial first is a good way to determine if Discourse is a good fit for your group. It's great to hear that Discourse keeps your organization connected and makes it easy to update everyone on recent successes and useful tips. Thank you for taking the time to share your thoughts and experiences with Discourse! ### 8. Simply futuristic! A revolutionary way to manage your own virtual community! **Rating:** 4.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Hospital & Health Care | Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** January 28, 2019 **What do you like best about Discourse?** It simply breaks with the way of carrying the virtual community traditionally, It is not just about asking questions and writing answers like StackOverFlow, StackExchange, but it is about getting social interaction, maintaining a coexistence and establishing links with the community. I like this a lot because it is about empowering the community to lead itself, being the only way to keep at bay those who, instead of contributing, start publishing spam or behave like a troll. **What do you dislike about Discourse?** Being free software, the company must be able to customize the software according to their needs. Obviously, each company is different, it does not make sense to apply a single solution. This power of personalization is only given by free software. Just as there are for WordPress, it is expected that for Discourse there will also soon be a wide variety of accessories, so that each organization can customize their installation to their liking. **Recommendations to others considering Discourse:** The categories created by the administrators help, on the one hand, to channel the conversations around the topics that interest from the point of view of the objectives of the company. On the other hand, they facilitate the search in the social network of both conversations and people. What is relevant ceases to be buried by the recent, as is the case with social software with timeline logic. **What problems is Discourse solving and how is that benefiting you?** A partner of our company requests a crisis management document in social media and obtains several examples of different real cases from our clients, it was very useful in that case. ### 9. Open Source for Forums - Discourse **Rating:** 4.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Hospital & Health Care | Enterprise (> 1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** January 28, 2019 **What do you like best about Discourse?** Frankly that it's open source and easy to use. Plus I don't know of any other software or cloud-base program to handle communications and data in large group settings or forums. This was very helpful with a previous job. There are also a lot of threads you can add to keep information organized. **What do you dislike about Discourse?** I never really understood the private message function. Not sure why I need it to contact administrators when I was handling a group meeting. Setting up mailing lists seemed to be too manual - not easy to upload IMO. **Recommendations to others considering Discourse:** It seems to have uses beyond group discussions and forums, which it is marketed as. I could see organizations using it as a communications tool much like Basecamp, Trello and others. But it does seem to be best use for communications and notes from events. **What problems is Discourse solving and how is that benefiting you?** We used it for client and group meetings to record data in an effective and efficient way. We did use in it in that way although then uploaded it over to Basecamp which was used on a more corporate level. **Official Response from André Sousa:** > Hello, Thank you for taking the time to write a review of Discourse. We're glad to hear that you find our platform easy to use and appreciate the benefits of an open-source forum software. Regarding your concern with the private message function and the mailing lists, we would like to thank you for bringing this to our attention. We are always looking for ways to improve our platform and your feedback is valuable to us. We will take your feedback into consideration as we continue to make updates and improvements to Discourse. We are thrilled to hear that you see the potential for Discourse as a communications tool beyond group discussions and forums. Indeed, many organizations have found our platform useful for organizing and sharing information. Thank you for choosing Discourse for your client and group meetings. We hope to continue to serve your communication and data recording needs in the future. ### 10. Discourse is an excellent communication toolset for team projects. **Rating:** 4.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** lsommer S. | B.A., Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** January 28, 2019 **What do you like best about Discourse?** A choice of seamless communication in the forms of a great messenger-type chat room, with conversation records, a mailing list platform, or discussion forum. **What do you dislike about Discourse?** Managed forum hosting is not free, it actually costs around $100 per month for a standard subscription. And for business scale traffic, it costs upwards of $300 a month. **What problems is Discourse solving and how is that benefiting you?** An easy solution to connect my ecommerce network of sales associates. With the mobile application's discussion chat room feature the whole team can stay connected, as long as there's internet access. At least, it would be great if it wasn't so expensive. ### 11. Discourse Review **Rating:** 4.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Entertainment | Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** January 28, 2019 **What do you like best about Discourse?** Discourse is a great server for conversation, and it's functions are very user-friendly. I like that there are both public and private forums, so my conversations could be as transparent or private as I want. **What do you dislike about Discourse?** The tagging system is a little unclear, and at best semi-functional. The all lowercase tagging system makes things hard to find, and difficult to read. Additionally, mailing list mode is a bit tiresome to set up. **Recommendations to others considering Discourse:** Discourse is open-source and compatible with many other add-ons. If you or someone in your company is relatively tech-savvy, you can really boost the power of discourse fairly easily (and cheaply!) depending on your needs. **What problems is Discourse solving and how is that benefiting you?** Discourse is great for community interaction and some of the best open-source software I've seen. If you need a forum software, I would absolutely recommend Discourse. ### 12. Great Communication Software **Rating:** 3.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Higher Education | Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** January 28, 2019 **What do you like best about Discourse?** Discourse is a great plateforme for discussion among group members and professionals. The group members can be assigned certain roles which allows for good moderation and identification of leadership. Topics of discussion can be easily organized as well. The application is very flexible and allows customization of discussion forums. **What do you dislike about Discourse?** Sometimes the discussion can get easily disorganized because replies to conversation build up. So it can be hard to separate the topic of discussion and tangents. The application also takes used to navigating. **Recommendations to others considering Discourse:** Initially the software can be hard to navigate. But there are many useful features that make discussion and organizational topics flow easily. **What problems is Discourse solving and how is that benefiting you?** Discourse is being used as the main platform for discussion and communication among team members. A benefit is that everything is all in one place and very organized. ### 13. Easy setup, takes time to customize to your liking **Rating:** 4.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Non-Profit Organization Management | Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** January 28, 2019 **What do you like best about Discourse?** My favorite part of the software is being able to tag things to search for them later. I also like that you can organize discussions and topics to your liking. **What do you dislike about Discourse?** It takes a while to get used to and customize to your liking. For example, you can assign trust levels to each user and organize things but you have to play with it a little bit before getting the hang of it. I suggest having a training day or a week so that everyone can get used to it. **Recommendations to others considering Discourse:** Take a week to get customized to it. Maybe have a training day. **What problems is Discourse solving and how is that benefiting you?** Whenever we have new training information or resources we use Discourse to ask questions, keep in contact with each other regarding future events, and learn more about our training material. ### 14. One of the best forum software out there **Rating:** 4.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Automotive | Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** January 28, 2019 **What do you like best about Discourse?** 1. User Privileges : Teams, Trust Levels, Moderation, Private and Public Threads make it possible to have as much transparency, privacy or power decentralization as one wishes. 2.Mailing List mode: Users can choose to use forum threads without the User Interface by subscribing via mailing list mode. **What do you dislike about Discourse?** 1.Private Messages can be seen by Administrators, something which might not be clear to everybody. 2.Mailing List Mode is very powerful but it's a bit tiresome to set-up consistently compared to the experience of the Graphical User Interface. **What problems is Discourse solving and how is that benefiting you?** 1.Conversations can be tracked easier without the risk of being lost in a sea of messages as people tend to construct their posts more carefully than on any workspace messenger. 2.It's open source and configurable with many other add-ons to help integration with other services. ### 15. One of the best open source softwares to inet forums. **Rating:** 3.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Victor T. | Técnico Senior Tech Center, Enterprise (> 1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** January 28, 2019 **What do you like best about Discourse?** Its strengths are that it innovates in the field of existing forums software by including features popularized recently by large social networks, such as infinite scrolling, live updates, link expansion, and drag-and-drop attachments. **What do you dislike about Discourse?** The truth is... I do not know what to put as dislike... Because both administration and the actual update are solid and improved in each version. Truthfully, I would say that your support could be better. But the tutorials and help in the app are gorgeous. **Recommendations to others considering Discourse:** Prove it. You will keep it. **What problems is Discourse solving and how is that benefiting you?** I use to test it only. **Official Response from André Sousa:** > Thank you for taking the time to share your review of Discourse, Victor! It's great to hear that you appreciate its innovative features, such as infinite scrolling, live updates, link expansion, and drag-and-drop attachments. These features provide a modern and user-friendly experience for forum users. Regarding your feedback on support, we are always looking for ways to improve and appreciate your input. We're glad to hear that you found the tutorials and help in the app to be helpful. It's good to know that you found Discourse to be a reliable software and that you continue to use it for testing. Thank you for recommending others to try it out as well. Thank you again for sharing your thoughts and experiences with Discourse! ### 16. Great Forum Software!!! **Rating:** 3.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Krys L. | Product Manager , Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** January 28, 2019 **What do you like best about Discourse?** The ability to have both private and public threads make it possible to have as much privacy as you would like. **What do you dislike about Discourse?** The tags are a bit confusing, could be more user friendly. Also, private messages are not private to admins. **What problems is Discourse solving and how is that benefiting you?** Open source is a huge plus. Speaking to the discussion side, community members are more prone to engage here as well. You can easily track conversations and not be bogged down with hundreds of messages since posts are written more fluidly here. ### 17. Excellent! **Rating:** 3.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Sonya V. | mortgage broker , Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** January 28, 2019 **What do you like best about Discourse?** Ease of communication. This makes communication among our group of Experts really easy. The software is initiative and easy to access,. You can organize and customize messages, inbox, and the communication means to your standard. **What do you dislike about Discourse?** There is still a lot of understanding left, we are still struggling to understand the software. **Recommendations to others considering Discourse:** Inexpensive, using it for a month trial can be handy, you can see if it suits your needs. **What problems is Discourse solving and how is that benefiting you?** Discourse is not very expensive, turned out pretty handy for us, would recommend. ### 18. Great for commenting **Rating:** 4.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Online Media | Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** January 28, 2019 **What do you like best about Discourse?** This software is great because it allows you to leave comments on whatever you feel and also interact with other users on any board or site that your on. It is very user friendly. **What do you dislike about Discourse?** It can be confusing for first time users starting out because it's not the easiest with the load time after writing a comment. **What problems is Discourse solving and how is that benefiting you?** You can see any feedback that customers, consumers or clients have about your uploads or products which is great for traffic. ### 19. Best for online forums **Rating:** 3.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Sahil V. | Business System Analyst II, Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** January 28, 2019 **What do you like best about Discourse?** It’s one of the easiest way to create forum online. The best part is we can assign n number of admins to any forum and The interface is very simple and modern. **What do you dislike about Discourse?** So far this software works fine for me but when it comes to customisations or to edit any existing forum. It doesn’t perform well **What problems is Discourse solving and how is that benefiting you?** I am using this in my organisation for taking opinions of my other colleagues. ### 20. Works Ok As A Mailing List **Rating:** 4.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Consumer Goods | Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** January 28, 2019 **What do you like best about Discourse?** This worked ok as a mailing list and enjoyed the forum option for fans to get engaged. It offers a unique tool that is why we chose the platform, but wish it could have done more so we could use it as a platform for multiple efforts. **What do you dislike about Discourse?** ....but for it to compete with other platform options, it needed more tools and options for increased usability. I would rather have one platform that manages several things, then have to use 3 including Discourse. **Recommendations to others considering Discourse:** Need increase scale in terms of platform scope and capabilities. **What problems is Discourse solving and how is that benefiting you?** Simple way to send emails and liked the discussion forum options. ### 21. Perfect for forums **Rating:** 3.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Kensei K. | Service Desk analyst, Enterprise (> 1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** January 28, 2019 **What do you like best about Discourse?** Easy to use and has the functionalities I need **What do you dislike about Discourse?** The minimum requirements to use are a bit high so if you have old devices it’s sometimes not comaptible **What problems is Discourse solving and how is that benefiting you?** We have been able to utilize the forum aspect very well and also make sure all our users can use the forums easily ### 22. Worth Your Exploration **Rating:** 3.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Briana Amirsharafi K. | Teacher , Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** January 28, 2019 **What do you like best about Discourse?** This platform,does as promised.It allows you to participate in online forums and discussions,with ease. **What do you dislike about Discourse?** I don’t have anything negative to say about the app. **What problems is Discourse solving and how is that benefiting you?** With access to various forums,I’m able to seek the input of other educators.It has put me in contact with those that I wouldn’t have met before. ### 23. Great way to connect **Rating:** 3.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Design | Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** January 28, 2019 **What do you like best about Discourse?** Easy to use. My partners love this product because of it's accessibility and layout **What do you dislike about Discourse?** There is really not too much that we don't like. We enjoy this thoroughly. **What problems is Discourse solving and how is that benefiting you?** We are able to communicate easier within our community to talk about whatever issues arise. Good for quick communicate and feedback ### 24. Streamlined Modernized Software **Rating:** 4.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Apparel & Fashion | Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** January 28, 2019 **What do you like best about Discourse?** Easy to log on, summarizes and condenses threads, blocks unwanted spam threats, is modern and versitile **What do you dislike about Discourse?** The pricing tiers are a tad on the expensive side **Recommendations to others considering Discourse:** Easy and friendly software in which streamlines various needs - all while at the office or on the go **What problems is Discourse solving and how is that benefiting you?** Streamlining our needs in Marketing; i.e.: Direct mailers, etc. all while satisfying the needs in other areas so that we can focus on other main criteria for business **Official Response from André Sousa:** > Thank you for your review and for sharing what you like best about Discourse. We're glad to hear that the software is easy to use, modern, and versatile. Regarding pricing, we understand that it may seem a tad on the expensive side, but we believe it is competitive with other similar software in the market. We also offer a range of pricing tiers to fit different needs and budgets. We're happy to hear that Discourse has been able to streamline your needs in marketing, such as direct mailers, while allowing you to focus on other main criteria for your business. Thank you for choosing Discourse and please let us know if you have any further feedback or suggestions. ### 25. open source discussion platform **Rating:** 3.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Government Administration | Enterprise (> 1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** January 28, 2019 **What do you like best about Discourse?** Private and Public Threads make it possible to have as much transparency, privacy **What do you dislike about Discourse?** Mailing List Mode is very powerful but it's a bit tiresome to set-up consistently  **Recommendations to others considering Discourse:** Discourse is perfect for communities and basically the best forum software out there.  **What problems is Discourse solving and how is that benefiting you?** Conversations can be tracked easier without the risk of being lost in a sea of messages as people tend to construct their posts more carefully than on any workspace messenger. **Official Response from André Sousa:** > Thank you for sharing your thoughts and experiences with Discourse! It's great to hear that you appreciate the platform's ability to balance transparency and privacy through its private and public thread options. While setting up Mailing List Mode may be a bit tedious, it's good to know that the feature is still very powerful. Your recommendation to consider Discourse for communities is helpful, and it's great to hear that the platform has been beneficial for you in terms of easier conversation tracking and more thoughtful post-construction. Overall, it sounds like you have had a positive experience with Discourse, and we appreciate you taking the time to provide your feedback. ### 26. Excellent Forum Software **Rating:** 3.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Marketing and Advertising | Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** January 28, 2019 **What do you like best about Discourse?** I liked the fact that this software made the overall experience more enjoyable by offering achievement badges based on your frequent activity. It's also great that they offer mailing lists for certain forums. **What do you dislike about Discourse?** The privacy seems a bit iffy to me. Since private messages are viewable to administrators, it puts a lot less trust in the privacy of the software itself. **What problems is Discourse solving and how is that benefiting you?** The ease of communication on forums with similar interests/problems. ### 27. Good open source discussion software **Rating:** 3.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Accounting | Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** January 28, 2019 **What do you like best about Discourse?** Open source, simplistic and streamlined. **What do you dislike about Discourse?** Limitations on installation of the discourse. **Recommendations to others considering Discourse:** It is an open source product so it does not have the support/polish that enterprise software has. When using Discourse, definitely review their own forums to see potential issues and support. **What problems is Discourse solving and how is that benefiting you?** Cheap alternative that is open source. Easy to save money using it while maintaining communication. ### 28. Good system **Rating:** 4.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Entertainment | Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** January 28, 2019 **What do you like best about Discourse?** Users can choose to use forum threads without the User Interface by subscribing via mailing list mode. **What do you dislike about Discourse?** Private Messages can be seen by Administrators, something which might not be clear to everybody. **What problems is Discourse solving and how is that benefiting you?** We've used it several times to use it with our equipment. ### 29. Easy to use forum software **Rating:** 3.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Business Supplies and Equipment | Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** January 28, 2019 **What do you like best about Discourse?** Easy to use software that lets users subscribing via mailing list mode without user interface. **What do you dislike about Discourse?** The tags are all lower case which seems a bit obscure. **What problems is Discourse solving and how is that benefiting you?** Tracking conversations and getting members of the community involved in discussions provides so much value. ### 30. Great product to use for work **Rating:** 4.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Computer & Network Security | Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** January 28, 2019 **What do you like best about Discourse?** I like that i was able to communicate with co workers through private chats or forums. **What do you dislike about Discourse?** I found it easy to use and found no dislikes **What problems is Discourse solving and how is that benefiting you?** Able to ask supervisors for help with just a click of a button ### 31. Great way to email clients **Rating:** 3.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Higher Education | Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** January 29, 2019 **What do you like best about Discourse?** I like that you can use it for email distributing . **What do you dislike about Discourse?** There is not much that I do not like about the software. **What problems is Discourse solving and how is that benefiting you?** I am able to get more emails out and interact with our customers more efficiently. **Official Response from André Sousa:** > Thank you for taking the time to review Discourse! We're glad to hear that you find our platform to be a great way to email clients. Our platform offers a range of features that allow for efficient email distribution and interaction with customers. We're also happy to hear that there's not much that you dislike about our software. We're constantly working to improve our platform and user experience, so we appreciate any feedback or suggestions you may have. It's great to hear that Discourse is solving problems for you and benefiting your business by allowing you to get more emails out and interact with customers more efficiently. We're honored to be a part of your success and we look forward to continuing to provide you with the best possible experience. Thank you for choosing Discourse! ### 32. Easy to use tool **Rating:** 3.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Computer Software | Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** January 28, 2019 **What do you like best about Discourse?** Great discussion platform that has streamlined my team discussion workflows.. Simple, clean, and easy-to-use **What do you dislike about Discourse?** Option to edit/remove tags/categories would be nice. **What problems is Discourse solving and how is that benefiting you?** Streamlined the tracking of information, which we use to have everywhere - Google Drive, Drop Box, etc. ### 33. Great for communication **Rating:** 3.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Primary/Secondary Education | Enterprise (> 1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** January 28, 2019 **What do you like best about Discourse?** I use this to communicate with my colleagues. **What do you dislike about Discourse?** I've used other programs for this, which I like better. **What problems is Discourse solving and how is that benefiting you?** Easy to use for communication. ### 34. Setup was hard, but works great **Rating:** 4.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Non-Profit Organization Management | Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** January 28, 2019 **What do you like best about Discourse?** Best forum/discussion software we have ever used **What do you dislike about Discourse?** More difficult to set up than our old forum software **What problems is Discourse solving and how is that benefiting you?** Semi-public discussion forum ### 35. Discourse for document and information organization **Rating:** 4.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Brian G. | Content Producer and Art Manger, Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** January 19, 2018 **What do you like best about Discourse?** I really like the ability to tag (add categories) articles and easily search by and organize those tags. The ability to sort the page by newest posts versus a more traditional Category listing is also great. The badges you earn when doing things in Discourse don't do anything, but they are a fun touch. **What do you dislike about Discourse?** Haven't found a way to edit/remove tags/categories. For example, if you've misspelled something, even if you don't use that tag, it still shows up in the list. **What problems is Discourse solving and how is that benefiting you?** We had best practice documents in Dropbox, in Google docs, on various internal servers. Information was all over the place. Discourse was a good, inexpensive way to bring it all together in one centralized place that's easy to search and find. ### 36. Simples to setup and put into practice **Rating:** 4.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Luis P. | Partner and International Market Executive, Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** November 09, 2017 **What do you like best about Discourse?** The process of setting it up and getting things started was very easy and practical. It has a modern approach to the interface and things are quite intuitive. **What do you dislike about Discourse?** Sometimes it feels quite disorganized. Items of discussion start to "pile up" in the main view. Gives that kind of feeling of having a lot of emails that you haven't responded to yet. **Recommendations to others considering Discourse:** I would give it a try, since the setup time was fast and the ease of use was also simple. A trial run will provide you with the experience to know if this is the right tool for you or not. **What problems is Discourse solving and how is that benefiting you?** We are using discourse as our main platform for internal discussions, in other words, a intranet forum. The main benefits are to provide an open and simples place for people to discuss ideas. ### 37. Great for Conversations and Big Groups **Rating:** 4.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Apparel & Fashion | Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** August 13, 2018 **What do you like best about Discourse?** My favorite part of Discourse is the infinite scrolling they have that allows for more communication to happen. **What do you dislike about Discourse?** It can seem jumbled if this is the first time you use Discourse, but after you get the hang of it, it makes conversations simpler and more natural. **What problems is Discourse solving and how is that benefiting you?** For internal communication and discussions mostly. It helps us all stay on the same page. ## Discourse Discussions - [How do I set up a forum discourse?](https://www.g2.com/discussions/how-do-i-set-up-a-forum-discourse) - 1 comment - [How much does Discourse cost?](https://www.g2.com/discussions/how-much-does-discourse-cost) - 1 comment - [What is a discourse server?](https://www.g2.com/discussions/what-is-a-discourse-server) - 1 comment - [What is discourse app?](https://www.g2.com/discussions/what-is-discourse-app) - 1 comment - [View Discourse pricing details and edition comparison](https://www.g2.com/products/discourse/reviews?filters%5Bnps_score%5D%5B%5D=4§ion=pricing&secure%5Bexpires_at%5D=2026-08-12+11%3A51%3A43+-0500&secure%5Bsession_id%5D=42822578-dd7a-4a0e-b576-00caa9ea1966&secure%5Btoken%5D=bf85b89d2fdcc995a5b7a7e587d3619e34ff7c95841ee0904a4d7d8e69e2f07f&format=llm_user) ## Discourse Features **Account Options** - Single Sign-On (SSO) - Social Login - Reputation System - Topic Subscription - Bookmarking - History **Knowledge Pages** - In-Content Feedback - Versioning and Version History - Decision Trees - Duplicate Detection - Content Editor - WYSIWYG Editor - Rich Text Editor - Drag & Drop Editor - Customizable Templates - Surveys & Feedback - Pre-built Templates **Community Building** - Member Profiles - Real-Time Notifications - Member Discovery - Member Referrals - Community Spaces - Paid Memberships - Multimedia Sharing - Courses - Alerts/Notifications **Knowledge Base** - Q & A - Link Sharing - Searchable **Q&A Tools** - Tags - Commenting System - Notifications - Voting - Integrations - Knowledge Integrations - Formatting - Analytics **Knowledge Dissemination** - Page Analytics - Permissions - Knowledge Sharing - Notifications - Advanced Search - Organization - Other Integrations - Knowledge Integrations - Full Text Search - Web Notifications - Alerts/Notifications - Website Integration - Social Media Integration - Reporting/Analytics **Community Improvement** - Gamification - Polls & Questions - Automation Rules **Security** - Verification - Role-Based Permission - Public vs Private **Agentic AI - Knowledge Base** - Adaptive Learning - Natural Language Interaction - Proactive Assistance - Multi-Language **Additional Functionality** - Search/Filter - AI Copilot - Commenting/Notes - Content Publishing Options - Reporting & Statistics - Content Library - Document Classification - Drag & Drop - API - Customizable Branding - SEO Management - Real-Time Reporting - Generative AI - Self Service Portal - Widgets - Mobile Interface - Catalog Management - Online Forums - Email Alerts - Collaboration Tools - Mobile Alerts - Dashboard - Feedback Management - Document Storage - User Management - Live Chat - Chatbot - Knowledge Management - Wiki - Text Editing - SSL Security - Customizable Reports - Customizable Fields - Data Import/Export - Single Sign On - Content Management - Workflow Management - Knowledge Base Management - Activity Tracking - Discussions/Forums - Activity Dashboard - Calendar Management - Communication Management - Document Management **Customer Analytics** - Community Insights - Community Engagement Analytics - Downloadable Reports - ROI Tracking - Engagement Tracking - Activity Tracking **Content** - Trackable Analytics - Import - File Viewing - Update Notifications **Community Management** - Community Feeds & Discussions - Live Streaming - Chat & Messaging - Events Management - Admin Roles & Permissions - Knowledge Base Management - Group Management - Content Management - Feedback Management - Membership Management - Email Management - Website Management - Communication Management - User Management - Calendar Management **Communication** - Social Features - Tagging - Upload - Comments **Additional Functionality** - Collaboration Tools - SSL Security - Reporting & Statistics - Customizable Reports - Customizable Fields - Customizable Branding - Data Import/Export - Single Sign On - Content Management - Content Library - Workflow Management - Text Editing - Widgets - Generative AI - Knowledge Base Management - Activity Tracking - Discussions/Forums - API - Live Chat - Activity Dashboard - AI Copilot - Calendar Management - Drag & Drop - Self Service Portal - Communication Management - Commenting/Notes - Catalog Management - Document Management **Agentic AI - Online Community Management** - Autonomous Task Execution - Multi-step Planning - Cross-system Integration - Natural Language Interaction - Proactive Assistance - Decision Making - Social Media Integration - Third-Party Integrations - Multi-Language **Additional Functionality** - Activity Dashboard - Generative AI - Single Sign On - Email Reminders - API - Discussions/Forums - Ideation - Personalization - Reporting & Statistics - Contact Database - Moderation - @mentions - Member Directory - Mobile Access - Filtering - Data Import/Export - Commenting/Notes - Document Storage - Customizable Branding - AI Copilot - Drag & Drop - SSL Security - Customizable Templates ## Top Discourse Alternatives - [Bettermode](https://www.g2.com/products/bettermode/reviews) - 4.7/5.0 (114 reviews) - [Mighty Networks](https://www.g2.com/products/mighty-networks/reviews) - 4.5/5.0 (745 reviews) - [Higher Logic Thrive](https://www.g2.com/products/higher-logic-thrive/reviews) - 4.4/5.0 (427 reviews)