Is free forum software dying?

[Tracy]

And for Discourse.. I seem to have found the issue with trying to add plugins in and them failing. It all falls back to their text based setup that they use, which is VERY sensitive to new lines or spaces.

 

[Shawn Gossman]

And for Discourse.. I seem to have found the issue with trying to add plugins in and them failing. It all falls back to their text based setup that they use, which is VERY sensitive to new lines or spaces.

What sort of better plugins have you found for Discourse?

 

[Cpvr]

Aside from some of the more modern interface ones that some of you have been playing with, how do you feel about the current free forum software environment?

MyBB hasn't really been updated in ages. phpBB is updated but is still very much outdated looking as it has been when v3 first hit the scene. SMF gets an update here and there, but it doesn't look that promising, either.

Free forum software seems to be on the decline.

Do you agree with that?

Mybb hasn't received an update for about a year now. It was just a security/maintenace release though. Versions - MyBB

Jcink, discourse and nodebb, forumspark seems to be doing well.

The free forum software isn't so much on the decline, especially the open source ones. There's also some new ones that are on the scene, so they're actually seeing a rise.

General - Neobb: a new forum software is being developed

neobb is a community-driven bulletin board focused on discussions around the Simple Web, Indie Web, and similar topics. Neobb is being developed with ruby on rails instead of php/mysql. The project is currently viewable on github: https://github.com/smaudd/neobb Completed Features (pending for...

administrata.net

General - Cerca: the lean forum software

lean forum software Meaning: to search, quest, run (it) near, close, around, nearby, nigh (es) approximately, roughly (en; from circa) Circa was created after a long time of pining for a new wave of forums hangs. The reason it exists are many. To harbor longer form discussions, and for...

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General - Fishbb: Minimalist bulletin board software

Fishbb is a simple, yet minimalist bulletin board board software that’s designed for sustainable online communities. It uses go + & sqlite and no javascript along with 12 dependencies, 2,000 lines of, 2000 lines of code. FishBB is designed to require a minimal amount of infrastructure and...

administrata.net

 

[Tracy]

What sort of better plugins have you found for Discourse?

I would not say "better plug-ins".
But for a "simple forum script" which many XenForo cult members keep yelling that XF is, it does offer a viable and more modernistic take on a forum site.
Many add-ons that are are considered as "needed" are available for it. One that is that XenForo currently still fails on is ActivityPub protocol... which allowed a better sharing of information between sites.
Discourse has its issues.. one of the major ones being that by default it is configured (if running in an officially supported mode) to only allow ONE site per VPS instance. If you want to run multi-home, you can (and fairly easily)... but you will get NO support from the developers if you do.

The thing with it is it IS different... and for those that are fixated on the old forum format, they will not like it. For those that have a more flexible outlook on sites (and life)... they can easily adapt to it and may decide they like the features better.

I have had a few users comment on that aspect on both the NodeBB sites I run and the Discourse.... and when you engage with them at more length you quickly realize that they are still stuck in the "old forum" format of a site. They have issues with adaptation.