Discourse vs Khoros Communities
Discourse and Khoros Communities are both community platforms tools. Discourse is aimed at developers and enterprise, while Khoros Communities is aimed at enterprise. Only Discourse has a free plan.
Discourse
Modern open-source forum software
Khoros Communities
Enterprise customer community software
| Pricing | Open source · $100 | Paid |
| Starting price | $100/mo | Not published |
| Free plan | Yes | No |
| Free trial | — | — |
| Built for | Developers, Enterprise | Enterprise |
| Platforms | web | web |
| Country | US · 2013 | US · 2001 |
| Rating | — | — |
Choose Discourse if
Companies and projects that want durable, searchable community knowledge.
- Searchable, SEO-friendly knowledge
- Open source and self-hostable
- Mature moderation
Look elsewhere if: Casual real-time chat communities (Discord).
Choose Khoros Communities if
Large enterprises.
- Proven at enterprise scale
- Robust moderation
- Analytics
Look elsewhere if: Startups (Discourse, Bettermode).
Discourse vs Khoros Communities pricing
Discourse
- Self-hosted$0Open source (GPL), run on your own servers
- Free$0Hosted; 2 staff seats, 500k page views, 5 GB storage
- Pro$100/mo5 staff seats, 20 GB storage, 15+ plugins
- Business$500/mo15 staff seats, 100 GB storage, priority support
- EnterpriseCustomUnlimited staff, 1M+ page views, 99.9% uptime
Khoros Communities
- Khoros platformCustomQuote-based; contact sales
Discourse · Key features
- Threaded discussions with categories and tags
- Trust levels and moderation tools
- Real-time chat channels
- Discourse AI: summaries, search, related topics
- SSO and API
- Plugins and themes
Cons
- Less real-time feel than Discord
- Self-hosting requires maintenance
- Hosted plans pricey at scale
Khoros Communities · Key features
- Enterprise forums
- Gamification
- Moderation tools
- Knowledge base
- Analytics
- Integrations
Cons
- Expensive
- Dated in places
- Implementation
Discourse vs Khoros Communities: FAQ
Do Discourse and Khoros Communities have a free plan?
Discourse has a free plan. Khoros Communities has no free plan.