# Which is Better? Discourse or Flarum? **URL:** https://meta.discourse.org/t/which-is-better-discourse-or-flarum/71726 **Category:** Community Building **Created:** [October 10, 2017, 12:10am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/which-is-better-discourse-or-flarum/71726 "2017-10-10T00:10:48Z") **Posts on this page:** 1 **Showing post:** 32
### Author: ![oshyan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/meta/user_avatar/meta.discourse.org/oshyan/32/212644_2.png) [@oshyan](https://meta.discourse.org/u/oshyan) #### Post date: [August 14, 2021, 3:21pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/which-is-better-discourse-or-flarum/71726/32 "2021-08-14T15:21:41Z")
I share a lot of your concerns about Flarum. It’s sad, though, because I think the world of forum software has room for their vision, which is a very simple core, with all functionality as add-ons, so that it is extremely customizable but also every implementation can be very “lean”. I get what they’re trying to do, I just think they’re not doing a very good job of it. 🙄 Anyway, glad you’re on Discourse now. And since you were looking at Flarum with interest, perhaps you can help the Discourse community and _team_ work to incorporate some of the things that Flarum _does_ get right (mostly design/layout). I’ve already contributed to a couple of topics discussing these things in more specifics: > [@How difficult would it be to make the Discourse UI more like Flarum?](https://meta.discourse.org/t/how-difficult-would-it-be-to-make-the-discourse-ui-more-like-flarum/83430): > > Scale of 1-10 how difficult would it be? Hopefully this question doesn’t peeve anyone but Im torn between the two. Flarum has a really clean interface: Topic list is centered with no lines in between, yet its still easy to read. Search bar is all in the same sticky header and not a ‘nook’ Category markers look better, not just a 4x4 square. Hmm… thats about it I think… Does this make sense? Sorry if this is posted to the wrong section. Sidenote info: Im currently t… > [@Reply text box as alternative to current button approach](https://meta.discourse.org/t/reply-text-box-as-alternative-to-current-button-approach/197407): > > Continuing the discussion from [How difficult would it be to make the Discourse UI more like Flarum?](https://meta.discourse.org/t/how-difficult-would-it-be-to-make-the-discourse-ui-more-like-flarum/83430/19): I’d like to suggest we have the option for… I’d be curious if others agree with my armchair psychoanalysis of how this alternative approach feels and what behavior it may encourage or discourage in average users. Note that this “text box” really acts kind of like a button in Flarum. So I am not suggesting a radical change to how the composer works. The outline of the text box appears on-hover… Please check those out, vote and contribute support, ideas, etc. if you can! Bottom line: Discourse is the better forum and platform, but it _does_ need some work aesthetically, or at least some _options_ to look and work a bit differently (UX-wise). There are some better models being shown, and many, _many_ newer tools are going with e.g. persistent sidebars (Circle, Forem, etc.), so clearly there is something to this… --- _[View the full topic](https://meta.discourse.org/t/which-is-better-discourse-or-flarum/71726)._