Actually, You have to install the plugin regardless of how you decide to install discourse.
I’d highly recommend installing by hand using the official 30 minutes install guide.
https://github.com/discourse/discourse/blob/master/docs/INSTALL-cloud.md
Installing a plugin on discourse is super simple. You have to ssh into your discourse server then follow these instructions:
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 .
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.
As of mid-2025, many p…