I’ve been running an online community for several years.
From 2020 - 2024, we had our forum operating on a different software, and after limping along with it for years, I finally migrated everything back to Discourse.
After seeing how much better Discourse works, I have to say, Discourse is some amazing software. We actually used to use it prior to 2020, but I switched to another option because I thought maybe the grass was greener… boy was I wrong.
We were plagued with spam every day on our previous software. Even though our forum was completely private, we would still get constant spammers who dropped in and made a mess of things.
With Discourse’s built-in moderation tools, this almost never happens. It has eliminated what was by far the most annoying part of running a forum.
I am so grateful for software like this that serves its purpose without creating a monster we have to wrangle every day. I know it’s no small feat to build and maintain this kind of thing.
For everyone who has played a part (and continues playing a part) in making Discourse do what it does, THANK YOU!