Welcome to the Question2Answer Q&A. There's also a demo if you just want to try it out.
+3 votes
1.2k views
in Q2A Core by

I am sure many of you are looking for a better open source discussion forum script

I can across discourse and wonder if any of you tried it?

https://meta.discourse.org

https://github.com/discourse/discourse 

  1. discourse is on ruby on rail while question2answer
  2. discourse is backed by a much larger community of contributors while question2answer has one major contributor 
  3. discourse has APIs which makes it possible to create native apps

I must add that I never installed discourse as I still love question2answer but seems to me that question2answer  is no longer in active development 

Any of you could compare the two?

Q2A version: 1.8.5

3 Answers

+4 votes
by
selected by
 
Best answer

I tried Discourse before deciding to use Q2A. My main reasons for not using Discourse were:

  • Discourse (like all other Ruby-based applications) is a pain in the rear to set up and maintain if you don't want to use Docker, because the dependency hell in Ruby is nothing short of insane. It took me 3 days to get it running whereas with Q2A it was literally 10 minutes, as promised in the docs. If you're interested feel free to read my blog post about my experience.
  • As the name suggests, Discourse is more geared towards discussions than actual Q&A, so it's more like a web forum. From what I saw it also does not allow downvoting posts, which is a feature I definitely wanted.
by
I was thinking about Anspress, Vanilla and Q2A. I made decision to go with Q2A.
by
Thank you Ansgar
No wonder I did not see any selected best answer for any of the posts at the discourse forum. It does not have that feature



I have been using Q2A for a long time now, however very often I needed to develop an app but lack of API endpoints made it impossible

My worry is that Q2A is almost retired and no active development
At the same time I dont like Ruby and would prefer Python for the backend of such script
by
@Amir Cmpe

 1. What features do you "need" that can only be provided by a native app?
 2. Regardless of the lack of an API, are you 200% aware of all the server changes that you will need to perform in order for the features from the previous item to be operational?
by
@Pupi1985
1  the main reason I need API is to hire someone to wire a web service for me that users could created their own private sub QA forum.

2 I am not fully aware of server changes.  I know that the feature C that i mentioned above will lead to creation of additional tables (forums table, a user can be a member of multiple forums) and a coupe of columns to be added to the existing tables, a new page for creation of some forums by users with special right of forum creation.

That's basically all
by
What do you think Pupi1985?
by
+1
I hardly believe any QnA software will allow you to create sub-QnA forums out of the box. What I am 100% sure about is that you don't "need" a web service to do so.
by
would you be interested in custom writing such a plugin?
by
No. No plugin can solve that problem, actually. That requires significant changes to how Q2A works (the core). E.G. currently all users are part of the same Q2A installation; you can't make them be part of a sub-forum or something like that
+2 votes
by

It is real that the development of Q2A is slow. But it is up to each administrator to be able to modify it to your liking and thus continue generating interest in users.

0 votes
by
Unfortunately, nowadays Q2A development is very slow!

There are many new requirements, but the development is kind of stopped!
by
+2
It's an open source project. Anyone is welcome to give a PR for new features.
by
+1
I understand where you're coming from, but I think it's essential to take a more comprehensive view when judging the progress or development speed of an open-source project.

Firstly, if we are specifically talking about PHP 8.* support, you might be onto something. But it's crucial to understand that the past few years have been challenging for many due to the pandemic and various crises. People everywhere, including developers, faced personal and professional setbacks.

Moreover, the Question2Answer community, although passionate, has only a few active contributors. It's important to remember that these contributors often juggle between maintaining the code and their full-time jobs or other commitments. Their dedication to keeping Q2A afloat, despite personal challenges, should be appreciated.

Drawing from my experience in Development and Designing since 2001, I recall times when software updates came around maybe once a year. Those were significant, packed with essential features. The landscape has since shifted, with many software platforms pushing frequent, albeit minor, updates - sometimes just to roll the version number. It's a trend more prevalent since the smartphone era, but it doesn't necessarily equate to better quality or meaningful enhancements.

To be honest, I sometimes find frequent, inconsequential updates more disruptive than beneficial. Q2A, in my opinion, still stands its ground. It delivers effectively on its promise without constant version rollouts.

Lastly, as a personal preference, I have a soft spot for Q2A. It's built on PHP, a language I'm more familiar with, as opposed to Discourse's Ruby on Rails. Plus, Q2A does offer an API, giving us room to tailor it according to our needs.

In summary, it might be worth looking at the value and stability a platform provides rather than the frequency of its updates.
by
I'm not judging brother, I'm explaining the current situation of the project.
All the efforts on this great project are highly appreciated.
A technology world without open-source developers will be outdated and boring!
You are a software developer and know that any software without updates will die!
In terms of features, Q2A is great compared to other Q&A platforms, but without frequent updates, bug fixing and some new features, the users will have many problems.
Although this is an open-source platform, not all users know how to do programming.
Problems like spam registration, SEO, updating recaptcha to v3, features like Mobile OTP registration, and many other things need to be fixed or implemented step by step.
...