How many categories can discourse support?

[Falco]

Gotta quote Jeff here:

@codinghorror

If your users are asking for stronger boundaries between content, they are referring to categories. Categories are like walls – they exist so that people can build space for themselves and build space apart from others. They are strong divisions.

That said, of course you don’t want too many categories – build 4 walls and you have a room, build 50 walls and you have a maze.

One thing you should do when starting is to create just a few key categories, and as your forum grows, you can create new categories, and use the search to move topics to the new category.

You can also use tags, that can separate content but are more lightweight.