Hi all I am thinking about using discourse for a future project. I have a lot of experience with what you would call traditional PHP and mysql forums. Like IPS, xenforo and others.
Discourse is rather new to me and wonder how easy it is to install and manage. Any advice and information anyone could give me would be great.
Discourse can take a bit to get used too even more so if your used to other types of forum software but its fairly easy to use and maintain once you spend a little time and figure out what does what.
Install is almost painless with the worst part being rebuild times and getting SMTP setup but even those are trivial if your following the install guide
https://github.com/discourse/discourse/blob/master/docs/INSTALL-cloud.md
Managing discourse is fairly easy as most of it is done through the website once its all setup. You’ll occasionally have to ssh in if you want to add stuff like plugins, update the docker container, etc. More advanced things are possible on discourse like running nginx on the host if you want to take it to that level.
TL;DR. discourse has it pros and cons and is worth doing a tiny install to see what its like before proceeding on with a actual forum
It took me a while to do the step with a full blown Docker container, but once I did, it was so easy and so much fun that I’ve just put it in production.
Steps and configs I’ve done are documented here:
https://monitoring-portal.org/t/new-platform-work-in-progress/51
This one is a more advanced setup with an Nginx in front to not only serve Discourse on the same host, but also another web application. Still, it is doable and I think even more easy to manage since you get the “maintenance site” for free.