While looking for Discord alternatives I came across this project which looks like a great alternative for the kinds of Discord servers centered around Open Source projects and organizations. Ones where live chat and voice rooms aren’t the focus.
It’s a combination of forums and knowledge base that would be perfect for this use case.
Whatever happened to vBulletin? That was peak forum software. Simple to use, no frills, and no bloated tracking shit.
All the car community forums are operated by Fora at this point, and they’re trying to push some bullshit AI assistant called “ForaFrank”. I blocked it on every car forum I’m a part of, and have encouraged others to do the same.
Some kind of weird WebGL error on their site I’ve never seen before.
Doesn’t load for me.
LibreWolf doesn’t seem to be offering to activate canvas.
Oh well.
Same for me, why does a forum software need webgl?
You mean why does the site for a forum software need webgl, by which the only reason I can think of is tracking visitors somehow. It’s not like the background landscape on the site is dynamic or something.
But, background is dynamic. You can see it has some kind of fancy moving dots. It’s totally unnecessary, but clearly WebGL was used for that.
Oh, so it is, hadn’t noticed it at first.
And, sure enough, disabling webgl in about:config causes the page to throw the error, instead of degrading gracefully. An animation of random dots is not at all necessary to expose about a product that is a web forum.
There is also a 3D spinning globe, so that too.
Works fine in Firefox on Android
Application error: a client-side exception has occurred while loading www.storyden.org (see the browser console for more information).Me too
Same for me in IronFox.
It mentions many AI features. Is this vibe-coded?
From what I can tell the author uses AI assistance in creating API endpoints and some front end styling, based on some clause code agent files in the repo. Whether that is for prototyping client changes after making backend changes, or thats what winds up in the official client, I cannot say. It’s a good thought though as it’s not really mentioned on the main site.
From reading his blog he seems to be not be yet another AI bro and I sort of agree with his position on the ultimate usefulness of AI. There is little to no AI generation implemented in the app, it seems mostly designed as a search function and is optional.
Looks like the pictures are also AI generated?
imo this line of questioning will become increasing irrelevant, coding might just be the best thing about AI, you’re going to find fewer and fewer projects hand crafted
Depends heavily on use. If it’s only for completion or for tedious tasks or for ideas, then yeah it’s fine. But if it’s a fully vibe-coded app it brings into question wether the author has the skill to maintain and keep developing the project.
That’s why it should be asked, or even better, just answered in the README.
I find it strange that they themselves have a Discord link in the footer.
Because it’s not for replacing discord it’s a modern version of phpbb or vbulliten forums, the OP mentions this
Ones where live chat and voice rooms aren’t the focus.
It’s a combination of forums and knowledge base that would be perfect for this use case.
looks like a great alternative for the kinds of Discord servers
That is correct. However, OP says right before:
a great alternative for the kinds of Discord servers centered around Open Source projects and organizations
That’s because it aims to replace one of the wrong use cases that projects (FOSS or not) weirdly decide to use Discord for, such as replacement for a “contact forum” or “support forum”.
Such a great point.
I’ve refused to use software that require things like Discord or Telegram for support.
Use a proper tool on your website.
I know, I literally quoted the line after it to put emphasis on the fact he wasn’t saying it’s a discord replacement but one where live chat and voice rooms aren’t the focus
tbh he could have just said it’s a new type of forum because it really has nothing to do with discord at all
It has unfortunately, a lot to do with Discord. I am a members of a dozen or so Discord servers, none of which are used for live chat, audio, screen sharing, etc. This software would be a 1:1 replacement for all of those servers.
You should be correct in saying that this software is not a replacement for Discord, but it is, just not in every single instance.
Oh great more cool FOSS projects to bookmark
Love this… Will take a spin for my OpenAstra
Mind, seems to be vibecoded.
So?
It’s 2026, being vibecoded is a self-explanatory problem.
Well, I have seen so many classic coders write shitty unmaintainable and insecure code that I don’t think that NOT being vibe coded mean anything.
It’s like the difference bewteen publicly-traded and privately-owned companies. Publicly-traded companies are guaranteed to enshittify due to fiduciary duty. Privately-owned companies could enshittify, but it’s not guaranteed.
A human programmer could be shit but at least they’re not guaranteed to be shit like the vibe coding AI
I like the analogy…
But at the end of the day better to have something that starts shitty but can be improved over time rather than nothing.
If it stays shitty, then it’s just shit and won’t go anywhere.
Looks cool. Is it already supported by NixOS?
This looks … great.
