Flarum

App in the BluixApps catalog

What it is

Flarum is a modern open-source forum platform — successor to esoTalk and FluxBB, built with PHP/Laravel + Mithril.js. Beautifully designed, infinite-scroll posts, modular extension system. Designed for community forums in 2026, not 2006.

For community managers tired of phpBB's dated UX, Flarum is the modern alternative with active development.

What it's for

  • Community forums — modern UX for online discussion
  • Customer support forum — public Q&A community alongside docs
  • Open-source project forum — discussion for contributors + users
  • Educational community — student / alumni discussion boards
  • Multi-topic forum — organized discussion by tag / category

Who it's for

  • Community managers running discussion forums
  • OSS project maintainers providing community space
  • SaaS support teams building public Q&A
  • Educational orgs running student / alumni forums
  • Interest-group hosts building niche communities

Why teams pick Flarum over alternatives

  • MIT license — fully open
  • Modern UX — Mithril.js SPA, fast and responsive
  • Extension ecosystem — themes + features via extensions
  • Tag-based organization — flexible discussion structure
  • Mobile-first — responsive by design
  • Active development — frequent releases

Integrations

  • Authentication — local + OAuth (Google, GitHub, Facebook, custom)
  • Email — SMTP for transactional + digest emails
  • Markdown — first-class Markdown post composition
  • Extensions — community + commercial extension marketplace
  • API — REST API for programmatic access
  • Identity — SSO via OAuth or custom SSO bridge
  • Notification channels — email, web push, browser

Notable users & community

  • 15k+ GitHub stars
  • Used by countless OSS / niche communities worldwide
  • Active community on the Flarum.org discussion board itself
  • Backed by community + Flarum Foundation
  • Strong extension ecosystem

Tips & operations

  • Permissions / groups upfront — community management is permission-heavy
  • Anti-spam extensions — public forums attract spam; install rep + Akismet
  • Backup MySQL + uploads — content is the community asset
  • Email digest — drives engagement; configure SMTP carefully
  • Extension discipline — too many extensions degrade performance
  • Caching — Redis cache speeds up busy forums significantly

What we ship in BluixApps

  • Docker compose: Flarum + MariaDB + Redis (optional cache)
  • Pinned mondedie/flarum:latest (release-tagged)
  • HTTPS via Let's Encrypt
  • Admin user via first-run wizard
  • Persistent volumes for MariaDB + uploads
  • SMTP placeholder for transactional email
  • Backup hook covers MariaDB + uploads
Read this app's deep dive on bluix.app ↗

Get this app — pick a BluixApps plan

Same catalog. Scaling tenant isolation, white-label and support tier.

TierTenantsCatalogSupportWhite-labelMonthly
Stacks119 curated stacksStandard$19/moDetailDeploy
Starter10Full catalogStandard+$15–25/mo$49/moDetailDeploy
Pro25Full catalogPriority bugfix+$15–25/mo$149/moDetailDeploy
Growth100Full catalogPriority bugfix+$15–25/mo$349/moDetailDeploy
Scale500Full catalog7-day window+$15–25/mo$799/moDetailDeploy
EnterpriseUnlimitedFull catalogPriority 7-dayBundled$1,499/moDetailDeploy

Powered by WHMCompleteSolution