How fast can we be live?
Answer
About five minutes. Sign in, name your portal, and it is online at yourcompany.myforumcat.com. Nothing to install.
Compare
A support forum with no server to run
Discourse is forum software. You put it on a server and keep it running. Forumcat is hosted, so you sign in, name your portal, and answer the first question. About five minutes, start to finish.
Looking for Discord? That is a chat app. This page is about Discourse, which is forum software, and about a hosted support forum for your customers.
Free for 7 days. No credit card. Live in about five minutes.
5 minfrom sign-up to a live portal
No Dockernothing to install or patch
$9one time for a working portal
7 days freeto try it, no card
First, the name
Discord and Discourse are two different things
Discord is a chat app. People talk live, in channels, and the talk scrolls away. It is good for hanging out, and hard to search a year later.
Discourse is forum software. Posts get a title, stay put, and can be found later. You install it on your own server, or you pay Discourse to host it for you.
If what you want is a public place where customers ask and your team answers, you want the third thing. A hosted support forum. That is Forumcat, and the rest of this page is the honest comparison with Discourse.
Setup
No Docker, no server, no separate VM
Running Discourse yourself means a machine to rent, Docker to learn, a database, and a mail sender. Then comes update day, every release.
Here there is nothing to install. You sign in, type a name, and pick an address. Your portal is live at yourcompany.myforumcat.com while you are still on the page.
Moving to your own domain later is a DNS record and a wait. The certificate is issued for you.
- No server to rent, size, or watch
- No Docker, and no VM to keep alive for one forum
- No update day, ever. We ship the updates
- Automatic SSL, sitemap, and link previews
What people say
Discourse is good software. This is the part that wears teams down.
Discourse is open source. It has a large plugin ecosystem, and many large communities run on it. That is real, and worth saying first. The comments below are about what it takes to run it.
we've got a massive number of features and settings ... this gets very overwhelming quickly
The Discourse forum software is fantastic, but quite hard to install and self-host.
you need to run a separate VM to run something as simple as forum software
over-engineered, over-complicated, bloated, heavy mess
Side by side
Setting it up, and running it after that
The rows that decide it are near the top. Everything below the price row is what your week looks like once the forum is live.
| Discourse | Forumcat | |
|---|---|---|
| Install | You install it, or their hosting | Nothing to install |
| Server | Yours to rent and watch, if you self-host | None. We run it |
| Updates | You update it, or their hosting does | We ship them, you do nothing |
| SSL certificate | You set it up, or their hosting does | Automatic, on your own domain too |
| Price shape | Free to download. Their hosting is quoted at $50 a month, and a Standard Plan at $100 a month | $9 one time, or $99 a month for your own domain |
| Custom domain | Yes, you point it and set up SSL | Yes on Pro, SSL included |
| API | Yes | Yes, REST on every plan |
| AI agent access | Check their docs | MCP server on every plan |
| Private questions | Check their docs | Yes, and whole private categories |
| Roles | Check their docs | Five: owner, admin, agent, finance, member |
| Open source and plugins | Yes, a large plugin ecosystem | No plugins. One product, kept small |
Discourse hosting cost, as of Jul 2026. The numbers above come from a public discussion of their cloud plans on reddit.com/r/selfhosted. It quotes "$50 per month" for the small license, and a "Standard Plan at $100 per month". Self-hosting is free to download. The server and the hours are not. Rows marked "check their docs" are things we did not want to state on their behalf.
Sign-in
No passwords to manage, yours or theirs
There is no password anywhere. Customers get a magic link or a 6-digit code by email, or they use Google. The Google screen shows your company name, not ours.
No password reset queue, and no auth plugin to keep current. Reading and searching need no account at all.
Price and address
One flat price, on your own domain
$9 one time gets you a working portal on a Forumcat subdomain. $99 a month moves it to your own domain, with SSL and higher caps.
The bill does not grow with page views, questions, or seats. A busy month is good news, not a bigger invoice. That is the whole Discourse monthly cost question, answered in one line here.
If you were planning Discourse for a SaaS product, or for customer support, this is the shorter path. You get the same result: answers your customers and Google can both find.
There is no importer, and we will not pretend otherwise
You cannot bring an old Discourse database across. No importer exists, from Discourse or from anywhere else.
Most teams start fresh, and it turns out fine. Write the ten answers your team types out most often. Then answer the next real question in public, and the archive builds itself.
A fresh start also means no dead threads, no ten-year-old advice, and no spam to clean up.
FAQ
Fair questions
Do we need Docker, a VM, or a server?
Answer
No. There is nothing to install and nothing to keep running. That is the main difference between a Discourse alternative for support like this one and a forum you host.
What does Discourse hosting cost a month?
Answer
Public reports quote "$50 per month", and "$100 per month" for a Standard Plan (reddit.com/r/selfhosted, as of Jul 2026). Self-hosting is free to download, and the server and the upkeep are yours.
What does it cost in month twelve?
Answer
The same as month one. $9 one time for a portal on a Forumcat subdomain, or $99 a month for your own domain. The bill never grows with traffic or questions.
Does it work on our own domain?
Answer
Yes, on Pro. Point a subdomain like help.yourcompany.com at Forumcat and SSL is set up for you. Your Forumcat subdomain redirects to it.
Can we import our old forum or help docs?
Answer
Not today. There is no importer. Most teams start fresh and let the new questions build the archive, which is live in minutes.
What happens to our answers if we leave?
Answer
They are yours. Every question and answer is readable through the REST API, so you can pull it all out any time.
Try the calm version first
Name your portal and answer one question. If it is not simpler than the setup you were planning, close the tab and keep your money.
Create your portalFree for 7 days. No credit card. Live in about five minutes.
