How to install Plugins on Free Hosting?

Support
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1

There are posts/tutorials on this for self hosting, but I couldn’t find one for free hosting.

  • All plugins are found in Plugin - Discourse Meta
  • In Admin > Plugins, under Installed plugins,
    Only a select list of official plugins are shown (this list doesn’t even include all official ones right? About 15)
  1. Are those the only plugins available with Discourse’s hosting?
  2. On my free hosted forum, can I install;
    2.1) at least official plugins that are not on that list?
    2.2) unofficial plugins?

Specially for 2.1), pls lmk,
If installing is natively straightforward (great!)
If not, any workarounds?
If also not, please​:folded_hands: @Discourse can you include this plugin Discourse Restricted Replies in the list

2

On Discourse Hosting you are limited to the plugins allowed in your plan. You cannot install plugins on your own and on most plans you cannot even get custom plugins. This is limited to enterprise plan. On other plans you can only use those already installed.

At Discourse pricing | Discourse - Civilized Discussion you can see the plugins included in each plan.

The plugins included in the free plan are very limited

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What is your use case for the restricted-replies plugin? Maybe there is a different solution to that problem.

3

Danke for your response. I see, so with Free Discourse Hosting, plugins can’t be installed. Only those preinstalled can be enabled.
I understand that that list shows plugins that aren’t allowed in the free plan & need to be unlocked with a plan. For eg.

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But re this restricted-replies official plugin, as it’s not a paid plugin,
Can I confirm, (with my current plan) is there no way I can get it?
Then the only option left is if @Discourse can include it on that list​:crossed_fingers:

Outside of this general topic re plugins,
@Moin Re the feature I’m trying to build & wanted to try this restricted-replies, please help me here​:backhand_index_pointing_right: Under a given forum topic, I want to set 1 post Max including any message & reply
if I can find alternative ways to achieve that feature

4

Yes, plugins on official hosting are limited by tier as @Moin said. You can check the page she linked to see which plugins are supported under which tier, but the Free tier is intentionally limited. If you really need that plugin you will need to self-host or buy another hosting tier.

For your “one post per user” thing, I’m not entirely sure that restricted replies is the right thing for you regardless, as that is primarily designed for restricting replies to people in certain groups.

5

by design, you won’t be able to do much customizing on the free plan. that is why it is free.

Discourse makes money on their various hosted tiers and each tier offers more options - it’s how their business model works, and it wouldn’t make sense for them otherwise.

to get more options for customizability, especially something as specific and unique as what you are asking for, you either need to pay for more hosting or self-host yourself, and do/get someone to build it for you. the restricted replies plugin will not do what you are trying to achieve - it simply adds more group permissions features to the existing category security settings.