Flarum

I’m not sure who it was I originally discussed this with (I believe it was Spriteclad), but Flarum is a fairly new bit of forum software that I think is possibly one of the best available.

Discourse is probably one of the coolest and smoothest forum softwares I’ve used, but it does have some flaws (most notably the Search). Flarum comes across to me as more of an improved Discourse. Some striking pros to it is that it’s much more lightweight and has a very nice mobile version.

Of course, I’ll be happy with anything that’s not BB or vBulletin, but I have a feeling you all (devs included) would enjoy Flarum.

You can find out more about it and its features here. It’s currently in beta, so it would probably not be optimal to switch to anytime soon, but it’s being worked on heavily. They have a roadmap here for any of the forum admins to keep their eye on.

That looks sick. I doubt the forum would switch to this in the near future, but, that is one of the most sexy forums I’ve seen.

No. We need to go back to the roots.

MyBB or SMF 4 lyfe.

it is very very pretty, but we just switched over to this one, I think we should wear it out a little before jumping to a new one again. Plus, if we wait then some new forum software that’s totally awesome and better will come along.

Who knows, maybe in the future we’ll even get a forum that has VR support.

I’d suggest it to the team, but I’d rather wait until it gets to stable first. And until they make transfer tools that are compatible with Discourse.

##Never.

(though honestly MyBB isn’t that bad, never really liked SMF though)

Honestly, it looks nice but I think discourse wins by a long way. One pro is that Flarum is free and presumable pixel tail games wouldn’t want to switch over to something free after they paid for discourse. Flarum just feels like a lighter discourse, it’s got that same post number counter infinite scrolling etc instead of pages but it feels so shallow and hard to create a community in. I dunno if I’m just judging without experience and you could definitely use it in many situations (due to it’s availability/non-existent price) but since discourse is already in place, I doubt the forums will change.

tl;dr flarum is nice, but lacking features whereas discourse is already running, working nicely and has more support etc.

Discourse is free.

We aren’t switching our forum software everytime there’s some new software made. Discourse is exactly what we need and I don’t see us changing anytime soon.

As stated in the post, I did not say this was something to do anytime soon. Flarum is still in beta. Considering Discourse’s flaws, however, and the possible gains from this new software, it’s just something to consider for a later date.

Even then, Discourse is still a great software, especially compared to what I believe the site used before, but no software’s perfect. It’s always good to check out alternatives. Just trying to find the most efficient and user-friendly work out there.

Are there any sites out there that use Flarum, just to get a feel of it?

Judging by the site itself, I would be totally for seeing this in place of Discourse if it proves itself stable enough.

I made a test website here.

Just browsing around the site on my iPad 2, it’s blazing fast. I love it.

welp, that flew through my face, I just assumed it costed since it has a ‘buy it’ section on the website but looking back it says installation fee and hosting fees.

my bad.

While Flarum looks really pretty, we wouldn’t really need a new forum software ever I think. And it goes with that same old flat theme which I just got quite tired of (although I know that flat themes are just trending at the moment, it’s just not something I personally like). If we ever had to switch our forum software, we could switch to IP Board or XenForo, or if we want a free software, MyBB. (But not SMF. I tried that one on my little test website, and it wasn’t very good. Administration panels are clunky, and it lacks some really useful features, as well as themes feel like it’s 2007.) I don’t see why we would ever want to switch our forum software though. Discourse is one of the most modern and robust ones out there, gl finding a better alternative. (When I first heard of a pixeltail games forum for tower unite, I thought it’s gonna be MyBB, hah! )

I still hold the opinion Flarum is that It’s not just pretty, but highly efficient.

Wouldn’t you argue Discourse is also pretty flat? I believe that’s the modern trend at the moment, regardless. I somewhat miss the glossy bubbles of '07 though, haha.

These two I would say are probably the best non-modern looking forum softwares out there. Good experiences with them! I just think it’s time to move away from the classic style of things, I dunno.

I would. When I first went on this forum and noticed the flat theme, I wasn’t very impressed :V But heck, I can live with it, I never tried to say that I am a complete enemy of flat themes.