Okay, so if I already have a well-developed plugin in development mode, how do I move that plugin to production without relying on third-party services? Is there even a way to do that?

Yes, it’s explained in this doc [image] Install plugins on a self-hosted site Self-Hosting warning This guide assumes that you have a self-hosted standard installation. We only support the standard method of install here, so these instructions assume you have a standard install. warning This guide only applies to self-hosted Discourse instances. If you are using a managed hosting service, the available plugins are controlled by your hosting provider. For example, on our hosting these specific plugins are available by hosting tier. information_source As of mid-2025, many p…

Are you serious? That whole tutorial relies on GitHub, and my question is about not relying on third parties.

Host it on GitHub or GitLab, clone as usual.

[image] Willy: and my question is about not relying on third parties. Discourse itself depends on quite a few external services like Github, Docker Hub, Rubygems, the NPM registry and LetsEncrypt. Just making your plugin deployment independent of Github does not make a lot of sense if you ask me.

Oh you’re right, missed that part. :woman_shrugging:

It makes sense because I have developed many small plugins that do small things and therefore won’t need updates, managing GitHub to put those small plugins up is overkill, it’s too much work.

Putting a plugin up on Github is less than one minute of work. Create repository and copy/paste the shell script it outputs upon creation that does git init, git add and git push. That is the reason why you’re the first one to ask this. Having your plugins under version control is a good idea as well, no matter how small the plugin is. You could copy the install script and modify it so it copies your plugin directories into the docker image directly. That assumes you have the plugin code locally already. However, I suspect that maintaining the modified install script against the updates it gets is 10x more work.

I’m not the first to ask (others have asked before) but the discussion keeps getting more complicated, and in the end, you guys never actually answer anything. There’s no justification for this approach that doesn’t allow for flexibility. At least try WordPress or another service once, and you’ll see that installing plugins isn’t the nightmare it is on Discourse. Using GitHub is fine, but is wanting to work locally frowned upon?

[image] Willy: you guys Just to be clear: I do not work for Discourse.org. I’m just a user here, just like you. [image] Willy: There’s no justification for this approach that doesn’t allow for flexibility. At least try WordPress or another service once, and you’ll see that installing plugins isn’t the nightmare it is on Discourse. At Communiteq we have developed our own control panel which allows for easy plugin installation/deinstallation. Fun fact: it does not replace Github, it built upon it. If you ever built (not installed) a Wordpress plugin you would have never said that, because now that’s a nightmare.

Using proper source control will save you loads of heartache and issues down the line. It keeps your plugin safe for the future and helps keep an audit trail of updates. It provides a modular way of separating concerns, reducing complexity. It allows you to manage your instances independently, makes server migrations and rebuilds much simpler. It’s also the professional approach.

How to install plugins without using a third-party host?

Product Support Self-hosting

chapoi June 24, 2026, 11:24am 2

Yes, it’s explained in this doc

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How to install plugins without using a third-party host?

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