# Topics vs Posts vs Replies

**URL:** <https://meta.discourse.org/t/topics-vs-posts-vs-replies/304117>\
**Category:** Support\
**Created:** [April 16, 2024, 3:35pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/topics-vs-posts-vs-replies/304117 "2024-04-16T15:35:47Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
**Showing post:** 7

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![simon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/meta/user_avatar/meta.discourse.org/simon/32/339122_2.png) [@simon](https://meta.discourse.org/u/simon)\
**Post date:** [April 20, 2024, 4:59am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/topics-vs-posts-vs-replies/304117/7 "2024-04-20T04:59:20Z")

</div>

Yes, every post is a post. A topic is a collection of posts. Informally, the first post in a topic could be called the OP (original post). In the database it’s just `post_number: 1`.

I agree the terms are a bit confusing. I think that’s because this forum (Meta) is a mixture of developers and non-developers. Developers might be using terms that only make sense if you’re familiar with the Discourse code.

For some context, if you have a JSON formatting extension installed on your browser (for example [https://chromewebstore.google.com/detail/json-viewer/gbmdgpbipfallnflgajpaliibnhdgobh](https://chromewebstore.google.com/detail/json-viewer/gbmdgpbipfallnflgajpaliibnhdgobh)) you can easily see the data that Discourse uses to generate the topic’s UI. This topic’s JSON can be seen at [https://meta.discourse.org/t/topics-vs-posts-vs-replies/304117.json](https://meta.discourse.org/t/topics-vs-posts-vs-replies/304117.json). It shows that the topic has:

```plaintext
...
id: 304117,
title: "Topics vs Posts vs Replies",
fancy_title: "Topics vs Posts vs Replies",
posts_count: 6,
created_at: "2024-04-16T15:35:47.828Z",
views: 141,
reply_count: 2,
like_count: 12,
...

```

You can view the JSON without a browser extension. It’s just harder to read.

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_[View the full topic](https://meta.discourse.org/t/topics-vs-posts-vs-replies/304117)._