Playgroup AlternativesForum Software and other similar apps like Playgroup

Playgroup is described as 'A modern and affordable forum solution for communities. Well connected through integrations with Slack, Zapier and more' and is a Forum Software in the social & communications category. There are more than 10 alternatives to Playgroup for a variety of platforms, including Web-based, Self-Hosted, SaaS, PHP and Mac apps. The best Playgroup 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 Playgroup are MyBB, XenForo, bbPress and Vanilla Forum.

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Alternatives list

  1. Discourse icon
     155 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.

    70 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 Playgroup.

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

    • Discourse is Free Personal and Open SourcePlaygroup is Freemium and Proprietary
  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
     
  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 Playgroup.

    • phpBB is Free and Open SourcePlaygroup is Freemium and Proprietary
  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 Playgroup.

    • XenForo is Paid and ProprietaryPlaygroup is Freemium and Proprietary
  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. NodeBB icon
     19 likes
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    A community forum allows you to engage and retain customers, keeping them interested and up-to-date with your latest product or service.

    Cost / License

    • Freemium (Subscription)
    • Open Source

    Application type

    Platforms

    • Online
    • Self-Hosted
    • Sandstorm
    • MongoDB
    • Redis
    • Cloudron
    • Node.JS
     
  9. 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.

    Cost / License

    • Pay once
    • Proprietary

    Application type

    Platforms

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

    • vBulletin is Paid and ProprietaryPlaygroup is Freemium and Proprietary
  10. Copy a direct link to this comment to your clipboard

    Invision Community is a flexible, feature-packed and easy to customize platform that powers some of the biggest and best communities on the web.

    Cost / License

    • Pay once or Subscription
    • Proprietary

    Application type

    Platforms

    • Online
    • Self-Hosted
     
  11. Booklet icon
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    Booklet is a asynchronous discussion forum as an alternative to chat. It sends calm, automated summaries to everybody so that they stay informed and engaged - without having to stay logged in.

    Cost / License

    • Freemium (Subscription)
    • Proprietary

    Application type

    Platforms

    • Software as a Service (SaaS)
     
    • Booklet is the most popular SaaS alternative to Playgroup.

    • Booklet is Freemium and ProprietaryPlaygroup is also Freemium and Proprietary
  12. Copy a direct link to this comment to your clipboard

    With Instaforum, you can build a forum website that's as simple and usable as a modern messaging app. It can be public or private, and users don't have to install anything. It's easy to set up, runs on your domain with your branding, and you control your data.

    Cost / License

    • Subscription
    • Proprietary

    Application type

    Platforms

    • Online
    • Software as a Service (SaaS)
     
12 of 18 Playgroup alternatives