Flarum is great. Don’t get this wrong. It was just not for me.

For simple little things, it was hard to keep up with between managing the VPS, updating other software in the LEMP stack, Composer, etc. Every turn, I was breaking something. I just didn’t have the patience for it. Maybe it’s because I’m a dad, or work primarily with circuit cards, or my background in the Marine Corps - my patience is thin.

I like to learn many things, and spend time on it for sure… Maybe it was the “OneClick” software deployment today that has hurt me in the long run. But as a service, it’s great. Discourse, although heavy, it packs a punch in features and performance. The admin area is extremely loaded, so it’s overwhelming, but I feel like they did a better job with it, than WordPress has done that it theirs. Screw WordPress.

Anyways, I think Flarum is great if you have more time to invest in it than me. But on the other hand, Discourse is so well polished. As far as UI, Flarum knocks it out of the park! But Discourse again, is way more polished. And that’s the reason why I run DailyFed.Chat on it. I feel federal employees that flock over that way, will appreciate the software better. If you’re a federal employee, I would really appreciate it if you could join us there!