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
Get this app — pick a BluixApps plan
Same catalog. Scaling tenant isolation, white-label and support tier.
| Tier | Tenants | Catalog | Support | White-label | Monthly | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Stacks | 1 | 19 curated stacks | Standard | — | $19/mo | DetailDeploy |
| Starter | 10 | Full catalog | Standard | +$15–25/mo | $49/mo | DetailDeploy |
| Pro | 25 | Full catalog | Priority bugfix | +$15–25/mo | $149/mo | DetailDeploy |
| Growth | 100 | Full catalog | Priority bugfix | +$15–25/mo | $349/mo | DetailDeploy |
| Scale | 500 | Full catalog | 7-day window | +$15–25/mo | $799/mo | DetailDeploy |
| Enterprise | Unlimited | Full catalog | Priority 7-day | Bundled | $1,499/mo | DetailDeploy |