NodeBB AlternativesForum Software and other similar apps like NodeBB

NodeBB is described as 'A community forum allows you to engage and retain customers, keeping them interested and up-to-date with your latest product or service' and is a Forum Software in the social & communications category. There are more than 25 alternatives to NodeBB for a variety of platforms, including Self-Hosted, Web-based, Linux, Windows and Mac apps. The best NodeBB alternative is Discourse. It's not free, so if you're looking for a free alternative, you could try Discourse or Flarum. Other great apps like NodeBB are Simple Machines Forum, MyBB, XenForo and bbPress.

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Alternatives list

  1. Discourse icon
     156 likes
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    Discourse is an open source discussion platform built for the next decade of the Internet. A modern forum, everything's been redesigned to be easy.

    69 Discourse alternatives

    Cost / License

    • Free Personal
    • Open Source

    Application type

    Platforms

    • Online
    • Self-Hosted
    • Ruby
    • JavaScript
    • Cloudron
    • Docker
     
    • Discourse is the most popular Web-based & Self-Hosted alternative to NodeBB.

    • Discourse is the most popular Open Source & free alternative to NodeBB.

    • Discourse is Free Personal and Open SourceNodeBB is Freemium and Open Source
  2. Flarum icon
     82 likes
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    Flarum is free, open-source forum software with a focus on simplicity. You can use Flarum to easily set up a discussion forum for your website. Flarum is developed openly on GitHub.

    53 Flarum alternatives

    Cost / License

    • Free
    • Open Source

    Application type

    Platforms

    • Self-Hosted
    • Apache HTTP Server
    • PHP
     
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    Comments about Flarum as an Alternative to NodeBB
    Guest
    Positive
    3

    Has a similar modern look, powered by php.

    Review by a new / low-activity user.
    NodeBB Icon
    Flarum icon
    • Most users think Flarum is a great NodeBB alternative.

    • Flarum is Free and Open SourceNodeBB is Freemium and Open Source
    • Flarum is LightweightNodeBB is not according to our users
  3. phpBB icon
     90 likes
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    Since its creation in 2000, phpBB™ has become the most widely used Open Source forum solution. Like its predecessors, phpBB™ 3.2 “Rhea” has an easy to use administration panel and a user friendly installation process, which allows you to have a forum set up in minutes.

    53 phpBB alternatives

    Cost / License

    • Free
    • Open Source

    Application type

    Platforms

    • Mac
    • Windows
    • Linux
    • Self-Hosted
    • PHP
     
    • phpBB is the most popular Windows, Mac & Linux alternative to NodeBB.

    • phpBB is Free and Open SourceNodeBB is Freemium and Open Source
  4. MyBB icon
     35 likes
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    MyBB is the free and open source, intuitive, extensible, and incredibly powerful forum software you've been looking for.

    47 MyBB alternatives

    Cost / License

    • Free
    • Open Source

    Application type

    Platforms

    • Mac
    • Windows
    • Linux
    • Online
    • Self-Hosted
     
  5. XenForo icon
     21 likes
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    A compelling community experience. Intuitive. Social. Engaging. Fast. XenForo brings a fresh outlook to forum software.

    44 XenForo alternatives

    Cost / License

    • Pay once
    • Proprietary

    Application type

    Platforms

    • MySQL Community Edition
    • Self-Hosted
    • MariaDB
    • PHP
     
    • XenForo is the most popular commercial alternative to NodeBB.

    • XenForo is Paid and ProprietaryNodeBB is Freemium and Open Source
  6. bbPress icon
     21 likes
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    bbPress is forum software with a twist from the creators of WordPress. Its focused on web standards, ease of use, ease of integration, and speed. bbPress will try to keep things as small and light as possible while still allowing great add-on feature possibilities.

    Cost / License

    • Free
    • Open Source

    Application type

    Platforms

    • Online
     
  7. Vanilla Forum icon
     22 likes
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    Vanilla provides a standards-compliant, multi-lingual, theme-able and pluggablecommunity forum software that powers discussion forums on 800,000 sites.

    Cost / License

    • Free Personal
    • Open Source

    Application type

    Platforms

    • Online
    • Self-Hosted
     
  8. ElkArte icon
     2 likes
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    ElkArte is a modern, powerful community building forum software. It is completely free to use and is licensed with an open source BSD-3 clause license.

    Cost / License

    • Free
    • Open Source

    Platforms

    • Self-Hosted
     
  9. FluxBB icon
     24 likes
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    FluxBB is a fast, light, user-friendly forum application for your website. FluxBB was designed as a lighter, faster alternative to some of the traditional feature heavy forum applications. It is easy to use and has a proven track record of stability and security making it an...

    Cost / License

    • Free
    • Open Source

    Application type

    Alerts

    • Discontinued

    Platforms

    • Mac
    • Windows
    • Linux
    • Online
     
  10. ZeroTalk icon
     13 likes
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    Forum(s) built with JavaScript ( with CoffeeScript ) and alternativeto.net/software/json for the database distributed by the network .

    Cost / License

    • Free
    • Open Source

    Application type

    Alerts

    • Discontinued

    Platforms

    • Mac
    • Windows
    • Linux
    • Online
    • Self-Hosted
    • Python
    • JSON
    • JavaScript
    • ZeroNet
     
  11. vBulletin icon
     20 likes
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    vBulletin (abbreviated as vB) is a commercial Internet forum software written in PHP using a MySQL database server.

    45 vBulletin alternatives

    Cost / License

    • Pay once
    • Proprietary

    Application type

    Platforms

    • Mac
    • Windows
    • Linux
    • Android
    • iPhone
    • PHP
     
    • vBulletin is the most popular Android & iPhone alternative to NodeBB.

    • vBulletin is Paid and ProprietaryNodeBB is Freemium and Open Source
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