# SMF's categories vs Discourse's categories

**URL:** <https://meta.discourse.org/t/smfs-categories-vs-discourses-categories/53212>\
**Category:** Self-hosting\
**Created:** [21 نوفمبر 2016، 7:31م UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/smfs-categories-vs-discourses-categories/53212 "2016-11-21T19:31:44Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
**Showing post:** 1

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![dsanchez](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/meta/user_avatar/meta.discourse.org/dsanchez/32/64161_2.png) [@dsanchez](https://meta.discourse.org/u/dsanchez)\
**Post date:** [21 نوفمبر 2016، 7:31م UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/smfs-categories-vs-discourses-categories/53212/1 "2016-11-21T19:31:44Z")

</div>

In SMF a category is just a container for boards, i.e. you can not post anything in a category, you can only post in a Board or a sub-board. SMF allows for unlimited sub-boards.

In Discourse you can create topics in categories and sub-categories (two levels). To dig more, you use tags.

Assuming a forum is moved from SMF to Discourse is correct to assume the following will happen? For instance in [http://www.simplemachines.org/community/index.php](http://www.simplemachines.org/community/index.php)

```
Category: Simple Machines
 Board: News and Updates 
  Child (sub) board: Archives

```

In Discourse:

- “Simple Machines” will become a category
- “News and updates” will become a sub-category of the above
- “Archives” will dissapear and all topics in it will be tagged with the word “Archives”? and all topics there will belong to “News and Updates”

Reason I am asking this is to prepare my forum’s structure for possible migration to Discourse.

Thanks!

---

_[View the full topic](https://meta.discourse.org/t/smfs-categories-vs-discourses-categories/53212)._