Work · alternatives · 2026
24 alternatives to Trying to reinvent the forum
This is a completely modified SMF forum. What do you think?
Below are 24 products that do a similar job, ranked by how close each is in meaning and then by launch-day votes. Trying to reinvent the forum launched in 2021; newer entries below may have overtaken it.
- 1
Hello HN! I've found my SQL knowledge to be lacking, so I made a project that uses SQLite as a backend. As it is intended for self-hosting I aim to make it easy to set up and maintain. Getting it up & running takes no more than a few commands (bar setting up a proxy such as nginx, which is out of scope). I've set up a "demo" site at https://forum.agreper.com/ if you want to try out the UI.
2022 · github.com · its alternatives →
- 2
Hi, I'm Will. I'm 24, autistic, and have OCD tendencies. I'm learning to code and this is my first public project. I’d really appreciate your feedback and encouragement! This project lets me solve some of my OCD problems online. There are a couple of parts of the forums that I visit – Space Battles, Sufficient Velocity, and Questionable Questing – that I want to remove. Specifically, I hate seeing indicators of how much is left in a forum thread, because I keep thinking about how much content is left. It stops me from immersing myself in the story. It stressed me out. Before I learned to…
2024 · github.com · its alternatives →
- 3OF
A collection of open-source, slim webapps that make very little use of javascript.
2017 · goodoldweb.com · its alternatives →
- 4
- 5MF
tl;dr: http://pony-forum.com, forums are in again, baby! Longer version that breaks character limit: https://gist.github.com/ndarville/4753948 I was abroad earlier last week, so I unfortunately was not there to join in on the discussion of Jeff Atwood’s Discourse[1]. Discourse has received a lot of attention, and revitalizing the forum software of yore is suddenly part of the public conversation. As such, I feel I should bring your attention to my own forever project[2], which has been years in the making from the idea stage. I am not planning on “launching” it any time soon, but the…
2013 · pony-forum.com, · its alternatives →
- 6
Comradery▲23Database of not-just-a-forum startup communities
2020 · growthclub.online · its alternatives →
- 7
Hey HN! For a while I’ve been trying (unsuccessfully) to find a community for tech bloggers to get together and share what they’re working on, so here’s my attempt at making my own. It’s a completely free website and designed to be super straightforward to use. Functionality wise it’s pretty minimalist right now, with just the ability to register accounts, post drafts, and comment on other user’s posts. Support for more features like tagging post topics, user profiles and more are coming soon! Thanks for checking it out, and I’d love to hear any thoughts from the community. P.S. if you don’t…
2024 · review.caleb.software · its alternatives →
- 8NF
Hi, I spent the last couple of months developing OurClubFundraiser(http://www.ourclubfundraiser.com) and launched it about two weeks ago.I would love to get some feedback from the HN community on how I could improve the site and tweak the concept. Since launching I have found that: 1) I am not getting enough visits(Average around 5 a day) 2) Any of the visits I do get are not converting. I am working on 1) and will hopefully be able to dramatically increase the number of visits over the next few weeks. I could really do with some third party perspectives on point 2. 1)Is the concept not…
2012 · ourclubfundraiser.com · its alternatives →
- 9
I built a minimal opensource CMS, I use it myself for my blog and for other SaaS. l love blogging, and sometimes I post random thoughts on my blog. The only thing is, I always did it with .md files, which is fine too However, I was excited about the idea of using a CMS that was very minimal and avoiding the option of connecting something like WordPress or other big platforms. Open source (if you want to fork it or contribute) and free to use (unless I see you have a million views haha). Star the repo if you like it!
Jan 2026 · github.com · its alternatives →
- 10SH
Three months ago I shared OpenPanel with you all. Got so many encouraging comments then but one feature that was missing/undocumented was self-hosting. I just released it today and thought I would share it here. Keep hosting! Old post here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40432213
2024 · docs.openpanel.dev · its alternatives →
- 11
- 12
Feel Subdomain, Free Forum, Free Website, Custom Domain
2022 · bb.sayalagi.com · its alternatives →
- 13
I spent the past few weeks making an open source cloud code editing environment with an AI copilot and multiplayer collaboration! It's fully self-hostable in 5-10 minutes. There's a lot of minor improvements to be made, and some are already listed in the Github issues. Let me know what you think and feel free to try it out.
2024 · github.com · its alternatives →
- 14YA
Features: 1. Simple 2. No back-end framework like beego, gin, etc 3. Without ORM 4. CSR only Hope to get your feedback, Address: https://github.com/godiscourse/godiscourse
2019 · its alternatives →
- 15
An OSS Elixir Forum engine with an Elm UI
2016 · kickstarter.com · its alternatives →
- 16
2016 · github.com · its alternatives →
- 17
Easy-to-set-up forum website powered by GitHub Discussions
Jul 2026 · github.com · its alternatives →
- 18
Just wanted to make my first post about something interesting I've been working on for some time. Any ideas/suggestions for new hardware or software I should try out are welcome, though I will only have time for a major overhaul in a month or two where I want to redo and document everything a bit better than how it is currently. Hope this can inspire someone to start their own homelab or give some ideas to already existing ones!
2024 · github.com · its alternatives →
- 19
- 20
- 21IM
Try it at: ssh krnl.duetbrowser.com No sign up, totally free - no download. Let me know what you think. Prior art exists (brow.sh) but I wasn't satisfied with their graphical take. I wanted the raw, old skool terminal days of the early internet - BBS, and old green phosphor library comptuers - but running the modern web, with all the bells and jingle jangle whistles (JavaScript, etc). No funding, no VC, just 100% raw terminal fun. Not sure how long the demo will last, but try it out.
Jul 2026 · its alternatives →
- 22E
Hello everyone, A couple of months ago I was introduced to Excalidraw and fell in love with it instantly. The only thing I didn't like was that I couldn't easily save my whiteboards and had to put everything in one whiteboard which started to lag my PC after a while. So I made ExcaliHub. It's exactly as it sounds: a hub for Excalidraw. It's free, open source, and I aim to keep it that way. Thanks in advance for any feedback!
2024 · excalihub.dev · its alternatives →
- 23
Hey yall, I built this for my makerspace. We wanted to let each other borrow things, but also didn't want to put up a big shiny sign saying "hey everyone, my garage has a super fancy oscilloscope just sitting there" and also didn't want to necessarily always need to say yes to everything. However, when I show it to people, they've been suggesting using it for other things like board games, or wedding equipment, etc. I'm still trying to find PMF, so please let me know what you think! For the stack, it's all Elixir + LiveView which is really nice, and then Fly.io, Fly's MPG, Tigris Data,…
Aug 2026 · toolpool.garden · its alternatives →
- 24RM
I'm trying to come up with a semi-stealth "about" for my newest project. The point is to give a little (clever) insight on the project, but not to give the farm away. Please let me know what you think... "Want to pay $34/month or get roped into a six month contract? We know the perfect match for you. But it's NOT us. Want to answer more than 400 pointless questions? We know a place that can give you such harmony. But it's NOT us. Want to join a site that's all about free and all about flakes? We know a great spot for you to fish. But it's NOT us. AKChances is different. And different is…
2011 · akchances.com · its alternatives →
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Ranked by how close each launch is in meaning, then by votes. Prices were read from each product’s own site when checked and can change. Refine with your own description →