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Discourse

discourse.org
Summary

Discourse is a modern, open-source forum software that enables organizations to build and manage online communities. It provides tools for discussion, real-time chat, moderation, and user engagement, with options for self-hosting or managed cloud hosting.

Features
8/13
See all

Must Have

2 of 5

Rich Text Editor

Community Feedback Tools

Distribution & Recommendation Engine

Membership & Monetization

Reader Engagement Metrics

Other

6 of 8

User Profiles & Following

Tags & Topics

Email Newsletter Integration

Mobile App Access

Social Sharing & Embedding

Search & Discovery

Publication Management

Audio Story Playback

Pricing
Tiered
See all

Starter

$20.00 monthly
  • Unlimited members
  • 2 staff
  • 20k monthly pageviews
  • discourse.group domain
  • 20k monthly emails
  • 5GB storage
  • Public access
  • Secure web access
  • Community support
  • Local login
  • Discord login
  • Facebook login
  • GitHub login
  • Twitter login
  • Google login
  • Cakeday plugin
  • Checklist plugin
  • Footnote plugin
  • hCaptcha plugin
  • Math plugin
  • Reactions plugin
  • Spoiler alert plugin
  • Yearly review plugin

Pro

$100.00 monthly
Popular
  • Unlimited members
  • 5 staff
  • 100k monthly pageviews
  • Custom domain
  • 16 plugins
  • Custom themes
  • API and Webhook access
  • 100k monthly emails
  • 20GB storage
  • Public access
  • Secure web access
  • Mobile app
  • Chat functionality
  • AI spam detection
  • Global CDN
  • Custom themes and components
  • Custom domain
  • API and Webhook access
  • Dedicated email support
  • Local login
  • Discord login
  • Facebook login
  • GitHub login
  • Twitter login
  • Google login
  • Apple login
  • DiscourseConnect (SSO)
  • Amazon login
  • Learning Management Systems Integration
  • LinkedIn login
  • Microsoft login
  • OAuth2 and OpenID Connect
  • Cakeday plugin
  • Chat integration plugin
  • Checklist plugin
  • Footnote plugin
  • GitHub plugin
  • Graphviz plugin
  • hCaptcha plugin
  • Math plugin
  • Patreon plugin
  • Reactions plugin
  • Solved plugin
  • Spoiler alert plugin
  • Subscriptions plugin
  • Yearly review plugin
  • Advertising plugin

Business

$500.00 monthly
  • Unlimited members
  • 15 staff
  • 500k monthly pageviews
  • Custom domain
  • 26 plugins
  • Custom themes
  • API and Webhook access
  • Priority support
  • Migration services
  • 300k monthly emails
  • 100GB storage
  • Public access
  • Secure web access
  • Mobile app
  • Chat functionality
  • AI spam detection
  • Global CDN
  • Custom themes and components
  • Custom domain
  • API and Webhook access
  • Dedicated email support
  • Priority email support
  • Migration services
  • Local login
  • Discord login
  • Facebook login
  • GitHub login
  • Twitter login
  • Google login
  • Apple login
  • DiscourseConnect (SSO)
  • Amazon login
  • Learning Management Systems Integration
  • LinkedIn login
  • Microsoft login
  • OAuth2 and OpenID Connect
  • Cakeday plugin
  • Chat integration plugin
  • Checklist plugin
  • Footnote plugin
  • GitHub plugin
  • Graphviz plugin
  • hCaptcha plugin
  • Math plugin
  • Patreon plugin
  • Reactions plugin
  • Solved plugin
  • Spoiler alert plugin
  • Subscriptions plugin
  • Yearly review plugin
  • Advertising plugin
  • Assign plugin
  • Automation plugin
  • Calendar plugin
  • Data explorer plugin
  • Gamification plugin
  • Policy plugin
  • Templates plugin
  • Topic voting plugin
  • User notes plugin
  • Zendesk plugin

Enterprise

Custom
  • Unlimited members
  • Unlimited staff
  • 1M+ monthly pageviews
  • Custom domain
  • 50+ plugins
  • Custom themes
  • API and Webhook access
  • Priority support
  • Migration services
  • Design services
  • Custom development
  • 1.5M+ monthly emails
  • 200GB+ storage
  • Public access
  • Secure web access
  • Mobile app
  • Chat functionality
  • AI spam detection
  • Global CDN
  • Custom themes and components
  • Custom domain
  • API and Webhook access
  • Dedicated email support
  • Priority email support
  • Migration services
  • Custom design work
  • Local login
  • Discord login
  • Facebook login
  • GitHub login
  • Twitter login
  • Google login
  • Apple login
  • DiscourseConnect (SSO)
  • Amazon login
  • Learning Management Systems Integration
  • LinkedIn login
  • Microsoft login
  • OAuth2 and OpenID Connect
  • SAML authentication
  • Cakeday plugin
  • Chat integration plugin
  • Checklist plugin
  • Footnote plugin
  • GitHub plugin
  • Graphviz plugin
  • hCaptcha plugin
  • Math plugin
  • Patreon plugin
  • Reactions plugin
  • Solved plugin
  • Spoiler alert plugin
  • Subscriptions plugin
  • Yearly review plugin
  • Advertising plugin
  • Assign plugin
  • Automation plugin
  • Calendar plugin
  • Data explorer plugin
  • Gamification plugin
  • Policy plugin
  • Templates plugin
  • Topic voting plugin
  • User notes plugin
  • Zendesk plugin
  • Code review plugin
  • Google Perspective plugin
  • Saved search plugin
  • Translator plugin
  • Topic tooltips plugin
  • ActivityPub plugin
  • Zoom plugin
  • Jira plugin
  • FontAwesome Pro plugin
  • Category Experts plugin
  • Salesforce plugin
  • BBCode plugin
  • Discourse Follow plugin
  • Newsletter Integration plugin
  • 99.9% uptime SLA
Rationale

Discourse is a forum software designed for building online communities. While it offers robust features for discussion, moderation, and community management, it doesn't align perfectly with the 'online publishing platform' aspect of Medium. Specifically, it lacks a clear 'distribution & recommendation engine' for surfacing content to a broad audience beyond the community itself, and its monetization features are geared towards community subscriptions rather than writer-centric revenue based on reading time. However, it does provide a rich text editor, community feedback tools, user profiles, tags, email integration, mobile access, social sharing, and search capabilities.

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