I’m a developer but I’m not very familiar with the “forum/community” field. I would like to learn all about it.
I decided to create a forum which will have the label “Math, CS and Physics” (Does not really matter).
I found Discourse and it looks amazing. After some reading, I understood that in order to install Discourse, I have to buy a VPS. I don’t mind to spend some bucks on great things like that, but before doing it I’m trying to make a little research about them. I was wondering if there is a proper guide of how to install Discourse on a VPS (like Amazon or Cloudsigma) that I could use. I saw the guide on Github but as I understand it talks about installing Discourse on local server.
Just feeling a bit lost and hope someone can point me to the right direction.
If someone has some time to spend on me, I would be more then glad to have a PM from you!
Thank you for your patience.
AI-generated summary
In a support thread titled “First steps on installing Discourse,” verilog15, a developer new to community forums, seeks guidance on installing Discourse on a VPS (like Amazon or Cloudsigma) for a new “Math, CS and Physics” forum. They mention finding the GitHub installation guide but note it seems focused on local servers, leaving them unsure where to begin. pfaffman directs them to the cloud installation guide. michaeld adds that buying a VPS isn’t mandatory — for those wanting to focus on community building rather than server management, managed hosting options like Communiteq (formerly DiscourseHosting) or discourse.org are available. The thread reflects common onboarding questions for new Discourse users, balancing self-hosting with managed service alternatives.
discourse/docs/INSTALL-cloud.md at main · discourse/discourse · GitHub is what you’re looking for.
Not necessarily. If you rather want to focus on building your community, you could get managed hosting instead, at Communiteq (formerly DiscourseHosting) or discourse.org.