Discourse is the 100% open source discussion platform built for the next decade of the Internet. Use it as a:
- mailing list
- discussion forum
- long-form chat room
To learn more about the philosophy and goals of the project, visit discourse.org.
Browse lots more notable Discourse instances.
To get your environment setup, follow the community setup guide for your operating system.
- If you're on macOS, try the macOS development guide.
- If you're on Ubuntu, try the Ubuntu development guide.
- If you're on Windows, try the Windows 10 development guide.
If you're familiar with how Rails works and are comfortable setting up your own environment, you can also try out the Discourse Advanced Developer Guide, which is aimed primarily at Ubuntu and macOS environments.
Before you get started, ensure you have the following minimum versions: Ruby 2.7+, PostgreSQL 13+, Redis 6.2+. If you're having trouble, please see our TROUBLESHOOTING GUIDE first!
If you want to set up a Discourse forum for production use, see our Discourse Install Guide.
If you're looking for business class hosting, see discourse.org/buy.
Discourse is built for the next 10 years of the Internet, so our requirements are high.
Discourse supports the latest, stable releases of all major browsers and platforms:
| Browsers | Tablets | Phones |
|---|---|---|
| Apple Safari | iPadOS | iOS |
| Google Chrome | Android | Android |
| Microsoft Edge | ||
| Mozilla Firefox |
Additionally, we aim to support Safari on iOS 12.5+ until January 2023 (Discourse 3.0).


