Development
To get your environment set up, follow the community setup guide for your operating system.
- If you’re on macOS, try the macOS development guide.
- If you’re on Ubuntu, try the Ubuntu development guide.
- If you’re on Windows, try the Windows 10 development guide.
- If you’re looking to use a simpler Docker-based install, try the Docker development guide.
If you’re familiar with how Rails works and are comfortable setting up your own environment, you can also try out the Discourse Advanced Developer Guide, which is aimed primarily at Ubuntu and macOS environments.
Before you get started, ensure you have the following minimum versions: Ruby 3.2+, PostgreSQL 13, Redis 7. If you’re having trouble, please see our TROUBLESHOOTING GUIDE first!
Setting up Discourse
If you want to set up a Discourse forum for production use, see our Discourse Install Guide.
If you’re looking for official hosting, see discourse.org/pricing.
Built With
- Ruby on Rails — Our back end API is a Rails app. It responds to requests RESTfully in JSON.
- Ember.js — Our front end is an Ember.js app that communicates with the Rails API.
- PostgreSQL — Our main data store is in Postgres.
- Redis — We use Redis as a cache and for transient data.
- BrowserStack — We use BrowserStack to test on real devices and browsers.
Plus lots of Ruby Gems, a complete list of which is at /main/Gemfile.
Security
We take security very seriously at Discourse; all our code is 100% open source and peer reviewed. Please read our security guide for an overview of security measures in Discourse, or if you wish to report a security issue.
The Discourse Team
The original Discourse code contributors can be found in AUTHORS.MD. For a complete list of the many individuals that contributed to the design and implementation of Discourse, please refer to the official Discourse blog and GitHub’s list of contributors.
Accessibility
To guide our ongoing effort to build accessible software we follow the W3C’s Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG). If you’d like to report an accessibility issue that makes it difficult for you to use Discourse, email accessibility@discourse.org. For more information visit discourse.org/accessibility.
Dedication
Discourse is built with love, Internet style.