A real Discourse, free forever.

Spin up a real community for your people — with no costs and zero friction.

What you'll get

The real Discourse

Everything you need to bring people together, with room to grow. Your community runs on infrastructure we maintain, with automatic updates handled for you.

• Unlimited Members
• Unlimited Chat
• 2 Staff seats
• Free .discourse.group domain

Long-form discussion that scales

The structured discussion Discourse is known and loved for, organized by topic and built to grow.

Unlimited real-time chat

Fast, casual conversation lives right alongside long-form topics, no limits, no add-ons.

Email in, email out

The email flow that keeps conversations alive, members can read and reply right from their inbox.

Trust levels

As members become trusted regulars, they earn abilities that help them maintain a healthy community.

Full-text search & clean reading

A conversation from last week is as easy to find as today's, with a clean reading experience on every device.

Moderation & admin tools

Flags, a review queue, and granular controls. Everything you need to keep your community healthy from day one.

Discourse ID

Sign in, out of the box

Every free site comes with Discourse ID, our built-in account system. Social logins are preconfigured. There's no OAuth setup, no API keys, and none of the configuration that eats up your time.

Your members sign in with one click, and you create your own Discourse ID in about thirty seconds when you start your site.

Who it's for

The fastest way to build a home for your community

No matter what you're building, everything stays organized by topic and effortlessly searchable.

01

Early-stage startups

Engage your first users and turn early adopters into a community that grows with you.

02

Open-source projects

Gather contributors, answer questions, and build the knowledge base your project runs on.

03

Companies & teams

A unified space for support, feedback, and internal discussions. Everyone together in one place.

Ownership

You own your community

A Discourse site is yours to run. As the admin, you decide who joins, what gets discussed, and how your space is moderated. We give you the tools to set the tone and enforce it.

• ✓ Flag posts and route them to a review queue
• ✓ Automated checks surface content that needs attention
• ✓ Granular control over membership and permissions

Get started

Live in about a minute

If you've been sitting on an idea for a community, the cost of trying it is now zero.

1. Sign in with Discourse ID
   Click Get Started on the Free plan and sign in. You create your Discourse ID in about thirty seconds.

2. Pick your name and address
   Choose your free yourname.discourse.group address.

3. Seed the site
   Write a welcome topic, and a couple of conversation starters. An empty forum is a hard sell, but three good topics are enough to feel alive.

4. Share your invite link
   Grab an invite link and share it. With social logins already wired up, joining is easy.

We can't wait to see what you build.

A place for your people to talk — hosted, maintained, and free.