Discourse

Take a look behind the scenes!

Here's how Discourse built a system to roll out product changes without breaking anyone's forum - and why the answer was hiding in the codebase the whole time...

https://blog.discourse.org/2026/03/how-we-built-the-upcoming-changes-system-for-gradual-product-rollouts-in-discourse/

What does it look like to replace social media with forums?

We're finding out...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6DijCrwXmuo

The short version of what we believe at Discourse: a community’s language should not be the factor that stops someone from participating in a community...

https://blog.discourse.org/2026/03/every-language-is-welcome/

New from Discourse...

This month, we're launching the Discourse Podcast with tech writer JA Westenberg!

We'll be talking with the leading voices in community about the state of the internet, coordinating humans and how we get from here to a better web.

More soon.

Discourse offers 3 AI deployment paths:

- BYO API key (OpenAI/Anthropic/Google) → fast setup, low switching cost

- Managed AI → no keys, no ops; runs open-weight models on Discourse infra (data stays put)

- Self-hosted models → full sovereignty + fine-tuning + regulated use cases

One-size AI ages badly. Optionality wins.

https://blog.discourse.org/2026/03/three-ways-to-deploy-ai-in-community-platforms-and-why-choice-matters/

What happens when you swap the scroll for something slower?

Keegan from Discourse spent a week off algorithmic social media. No Twitter/X, no Instagram, no TikTok, no LinkedIn feed...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6DijCrwXmuo

What happens when you swap the scroll for something slower?

Keegan from Discourse spent a week off algorithmic social media. No Twitter/X, no Instagram, no TikTok, no LinkedIn feed. Instead, he redirected that time to community spaces: forums, Discourse communities with actual conversations, and niche groups where people talk about things they care about...

https://youtu.be/6DijCrwXmuo

Most feature request systems are where ideas go to die. Elfsight built theirs differently - public voting, status tracking, and developer KPIs tied to community-requested releases, all running on Discourse. The result: 700 features shipped so far.

https://blog.discourse.org/2026/02/elfsight-how-a-wishlist-category-shaped-700-feature-releases/

Category creation on Discourse just got a lot simpler. Fewer fields, better color picker + straightforward access controls. Advanced settings are still available when you need them. Enable in your admin panel under Upcoming Changes!

https://meta.discourse.org/t/simplified-category-setup/394971

For 5 years, our YAML automation was destroying comments. We sponsored psych-pure to fix it - and now Ruby can preserve comments during programmatic edits.

https://blog.discourse.org/2026/02/how-we-fixed-yaml-comment-preservation-in-ruby-and-why-we-sponsored-it/

Make outgrew their Facebook community. The fix: move to Discourse and turn scattered conversations into a searchable knowledge hub that works long after the conversation ends…

https://blog.discourse.org/2026/02/make-building-a-community-powered-knowledge-hub-with-discourse/

We’re increasing the AI credits on Discourse Free. If you've been rationing summarizations or second-guessing whether to use AI search on a thread, that calculation just changed.

We’re giving communities more room to actually use the tools the way they're meant to be used. 🧵

Most online “communities” are actually two very different things: 1. Libraries – knowledge bases where people arrive through a search, get an answer, and leave. 2. Cafes – smaller, talk-first spaces where the value is human connection. Know which one you’re building… https://blog.discourse.org/2026/01/before-you-build-a-community-decide-library-or-coffee-shop/