Discourse vs Open Social

Struggling to choose between Discourse and Open Social? Both products offer unique advantages, making it a tough decision.

Discourse is a Social & Communications solution with tags like opensource, discussion, communities, organizations, conversations, teams, categories, tags, private-messages, notifications.

It boasts features such as Topic-focused discussions, Real-time notifications, Private messaging, User roles and permissions, Mobile app, Categories and tags, Search, Moderation tools, Custom theming, Plugins and integrations and pros including Open source and self-hosted, Active development community, Feature rich out of the box, Good performance at scale, Extensive theming and branding options, Robust moderation and admin tools.

On the other hand, Open Social is a Social & Communications product tagged with social, networking, interoperability, profiles, friends, activities, messaging.

Its standout features include Enables social features like user profiles, friend connections, activities, and messaging, Allows developers to build social apps across platforms, Provides a common API for accessing social data across sites, Supports OpenID for single sign-on authentication, Includes JavaScript client libraries for building apps, Integrates with popular frameworks like Shindig, and it shines with pros like Simplifies social app development, Reduces duplication of effort for developers, Increases reach by enabling apps to work across sites, Leverages open standards for greater adoption, Enables data portability between social platforms.

Feature	Discourse	Open Social
Overall Score	N/A	N/A
Primary Category	Social & Communications	Social & Communications

Product Overview

Discourse

Description: Discourse is an open-source discussion platform built for modern communities and organizations. It enables fluid conversations across teams with features like categories, tags, private messages, and real-time notifications.

Open Social

Description: OpenSocial is an open standard API for social networking sites that allows developers to build interoperable social applications across different platforms. It enables social features like user profiles, friend connections, activities, and messaging to be easily added to third-party websites and applications.

Key Features Comparison

Discourse Features

• Topic-focused discussions
• Real-time notifications
• Private messaging
• User roles and permissions
• Mobile app
• Categories and tags
• Search
• Moderation tools
• Custom theming
• Plugins and integrations

Open Social Features

• Enables social features like user profiles, friend connections, activities, and messaging
• Allows developers to build social apps across platforms
• Provides a common API for accessing social data across sites
• Supports OpenID for single sign-on authentication
• Includes JavaScript client libraries for building apps
• Integrates with popular frameworks like Shindig

Pros & Cons Analysis

Discourse

Pros

• Open source and self-hosted
• Active development community
• Feature rich out of the box
• Good performance at scale
• Extensive theming and branding options
• Robust moderation and admin tools

Cons

• Can be resource intensive to self-host
• Steeper learning curve than some forums
• Limitations with native mobile apps
• Less flexible than custom developed solutions

Open Social

Pros

• Simplifies social app development
• Reduces duplication of effort for developers
• Increases reach by enabling apps to work across sites
• Leverages open standards for greater adoption
• Enables data portability between social platforms

Cons

• Limited adoption outside of Google sites
• Complexity of supporting multiple social platforms
• Requires sites to expose APIs and data
• Standards process can be slow to add new features

Pricing Comparison

Discourse

• Open Source

Open Social

• Open Source