# One discourse instance for multiple purposes
**URL:** https://meta.discourse.org/t/one-discourse-instance-for-multiple-purposes/179345
**Category:** Support
**Created:** [February 11, 2021, 2:51pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/one-discourse-instance-for-multiple-purposes/179345 "2021-02-11T14:51:12Z")
**Posts on this page:** 4
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@tpicouet](https://meta.discourse.org/u/tpicouet)
#### Post date: [February 11, 2021, 2:51pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/one-discourse-instance-for-multiple-purposes/179345/1 "2021-02-11T14:51:12Z")
Hi,
I am working for a research entity that provides collaboration tools to researchers or teams to help them working and to stimulate openscience.
One of the tools is getting old so I am prospecting new solutions. It is a WordPress website with several _buddy_\* plugins so that it better looks like a collaboration plateform. One of the _buddy_\* plugins is **bbPress** which provides the ability to manage forums (but in the very old way you know…).
In this configuration, members from teams can create public **or private** forum. I know Discourse as simple user for a while and I like how it works so I wonder if we could use this tool instead.
I’ve seen in other topics there is a [WP Discourse](https://github.com/discourse/wp-discourse) plugin, but it requires a running instance elsewhere. I have also read we can deal with groups and private categories but as I don’t have any admin account, I can’t experiment this.
### My question
Is it possible to easily manage public and private topics?
In particular, is Discourse _designed_ for this purpose or would it be a trick?
I would like to have members belonging to groups and only be able to see/create topics within their own group.
Any feedback is welcome 🙂
PS: please forgive my poor english
---
### Author:  [@fzngagan](https://meta.discourse.org/u/fzngagan)
#### Post date: [February 11, 2021, 2:58pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/one-discourse-instance-for-multiple-purposes/179345/2 "2021-02-11T14:58:18Z")
> [@tpicouet](#):
>
> Is it possible to easily manage public and private topics?
Discourse provides group and category level permissions which is far more useful and flexible as compared to `role based` permissions.
> [@tpicouet](#):
>
> In particular, is Discourse _designed_ for this purpose or would it be a trick?
Yes, it is designed to fulfil that purpose.
> [@tpicouet](#):
>
> I would like to have members belonging to groups and only be able to see/create topics within their own group.
Yes, this can be achieved by using correct group permissions on the required categories.
---
### Author:  [@tpicouet](https://meta.discourse.org/u/tpicouet)
#### Post date: [February 11, 2021, 3:00pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/one-discourse-instance-for-multiple-purposes/179345/3 "2021-02-11T15:00:59Z")
Hi Faizaan and thank you for this fast and exhaustive answer.
I guess we will try it now 🙂
---
### Author:  [@system](https://meta.discourse.org/u/system)
#### Post date: [August 19, 2023, 1:32pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/one-discourse-instance-for-multiple-purposes/179345/4 "2023-08-19T13:32:37Z")
This topic was automatically closed 30 days after the last reply. New replies are no longer allowed.