Self-hosted forums already exist (like Discourse), but adoption has been low. I fully support self-hosted forums, but I think they'll never achieve mainstream without a hosted option.
The two aren't mutually exclusive. It is a common monetization strategy for open source projects to offer a paid hosted option in addition to free self-hosting. For example, you can self-host Matrix (synapse, dendrite, and conduit) but you can also pay the creators of Matrix to host it for you[1].
I am also interested in self-hosting, I really dig the design and interface but not being able to self-host is a no-go for me. Discourse is just terrible overall and the only other real alternative is xenforo which is extremely pricy.
Adoption is low because Discourse just sucks. I just looked up something on the Docker Discourse - it took 8 seconds to load and made 80 requests. I just avoid websites that use Discourse. PhpBB sites loaded faster on my 256Kb/s back in 2006.
Contrast is also low and it's just bad to read. Too many UX people touched it.
philip1209|2 years ago
craftkiller|2 years ago
[1] https://element.io/pricing
omgmajk|2 years ago
sznio|2 years ago
Contrast is also low and it's just bad to read. Too many UX people touched it.
unknown|2 years ago
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