Community platforms · RankedDiscourse
Discourse is a community platform for hosting online discussion communities · discourse.org ↗
Strongest at small business. Ranked 5 of 58 for enterprise buyers.
The standing depends on who is buying. Every model is asked the same questions for each company size.
Circle is first at 39%.
Bettermode is first at 25%. 0 of 14 models made it the first choice when asked directly.
Higher Logic Vanilla is first at 55%.
Why models recommend it
“open-source, self-hostable, transparent pricing (from $100/mo), full data ownership, no lock-in”DeepSeek V4 Flash · Negative question · first choice
“Absolute minimum budget: Start with Discourse (free) or Thinkific ($5/month)”MiniMax M2.5 · Budget-constrained question · first choice
“Discourse if you want the best mix of capability, control, and cost-effectiveness.”GPT-5.4 mini · Paraphrase question · first choice
“Best Overall Value & Control: Discourse (Self-Hosted) ... Why it's the top choice”Gemini 3.5 Flash · Budget-constrained question · first choice
What gives them pause
“basic forums like Discourse (lacks B2B-specific features)”Grok 4.20 · Paraphrase question · warning
“Excellent search and moderation; less "modern visual portal" aesthetic out of the box.”Gemini 3.5 Flash · Scale-constrained question · warning
“the hosted version starts at ~$100/mo and can get pricey with scaling”Grok 4.20 · Negative question · warning
“Discourse can feel more technical”GLM 4.7 FlashX · Paraphrase question · warning
Also on the shortlist
The products named in the same answers as Discourse, over the 143 answers that named it, and how often each was the first choice instead.
| Product | Named together | Picked instead | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 116 | 32 | Compare → | |
| 100 | 23 | Compare → | |
| 74 | 20 | Compare → | |
| 73 | 6 | View → | |
| 61 | 8 | Compare → | |
| 56 | 5 | Compare → | |
| 56 | 1 | View → | |
| 44 | 1 | Compare → | |
| 34 | 0 | View → | |
| 20 | 0 | Compare → |
What the models named instead of Discourse →
A side-by-side page exists where both products are among a category's top eight.
At a glance
Stated on Discourse's own site, not checked by Gane.
- For
- community
- Price stated
- Start with the free plan or try any paid plan free for 14 days.
- Starting price
- $100 /month
- Free plan or trial
- Start your free trial
- Certifications
- GDPR, CCPA
- Hosting
- Global, Europe
- Customers named
- Twitch, carwow, Local Guides, Katalon, Hella, Western Digital, Wyze, Monzo
- Founded
- 2013
How this is measured
Fourteen AI models from 12 labs are asked the same buying questions six ways, for three company sizes. Standings refresh every edition.
Gane sells AI visibility software. No company can pay to change a result.
Read the method →Sources returned with these answers
Fourteen of the fourteen models returned a source list in this edition: five return the pages they cited and nine the search results they consulted. These counts come from 122 of the 143 answers that named Discourse and are not a share of its labels.
Domains cited
361 of the 390 domain citations in answers naming Discourse came from a third party's page.
Pages cited
Pages are listed as the models cited them.
By model
| Model | First choice | Alternative | Mention | Warning | Labels |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Claude Haiku 4.5 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 1 |
| GPT-5.4 mini | 2 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 2 |
| Gemini 3.5 Flash | 1 | 4 | 0 | 1 | 6 |
| Perplexity Sonar | 1 | 2 | 2 | 0 | 5 |
| Grok 4.20 | 0 | 2 | 1 | 2 | 5 |
| Mistral Small | 1 | 0 | 2 | 0 | 3 |
| DeepSeek V4 Flash | 1 | 3 | 0 | 0 | 4 |
| Llama 4 Maverick | 0 | 0 | 2 | 0 | 2 |
| Qwen 3.7 Flash | 0 | 3 | 0 | 0 | 3 |
| Kimi K2 | 1 | 2 | 1 | 0 | 4 |
| GLM 4.7 FlashX | 1 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 2 |
| MiniMax M2.5 | 1 | 2 | 1 | 0 | 4 |
| GPT-6 Luna | 1 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 2 |
| Muse Glimmer 30B | 0 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 2 |
What it publishes
| Kind | Pages | Last 90 days | 2025-10 to 2026-09 | Latest | Categories named |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Blog | 247 | 8 | 2026-09-23 | SEO, Community | |
| Comparison | 12 | 0 | 2022-08-01 | ||
| Conference or event | 4 | 0 | 2025-10-01 | SEO | |
| Case study | 2 | undated | |||
| Report or ebook | 2 | 0 | 2021-10-01 | ||
| News or press | 2 | undated | |||
| Template or tool | 1 | undated |
Most recent
- 2026-09-23Introducing discourse workflows blog
- 2026-09-23How turborenault moved 20 000 members from xenforo to discourse blog
- 2026-09-02How to use discourse for customer support blog
- 2026-08-18Amd building one developer community blog
- 2026-08-11Introducing the all new admin dashboard blog
- 2026-08-06Discourse discover building in the physical world blog
How it is countedHide how it is counted
Every page discourse.org exposes, subdomains included. Kind is read from the address and title. The last 90 days, the latest date and the twelve months count pages by when they were published, from the site's feeds, a date in the address, or the page's own publication date, read from up to a hundred of its most recently changed pages; a page that says only when it last changed is counted in its kind but not in when, so the recent counts are a floor, and a kind none of whose pages gives a publication date reads undated. An event counts as online when its address or title says so (webinar, on demand, virtual or online summit); a conference, summit, trade show, expo or roadshow that does not say so is counted as a conference or event, which on a vendor's site is mostly in person. Read September 29, 2026.