Discourse Community hosting
Discourse is a modern open-source forum software ideal for building and maintaining online communities. It can be self-hosted and offers a clear interface, real-time notifications, and extensive moderation features – perfect for lively discussions in your own environment.
- Community Moderation & Trust Levels
- Modern Forum UX in Real Time
- GDPR compliant
All-round carefree package
Our managed Discourse Community hosting packages
Choose the package that matches your requirements – our hosting solutions offer different performance levels with exactly the features and services your project needs.
Discourse Community hosting Standard
Standard
49 €/month
98 € setup
- Dedicated VM
OpenStack Public Cloud - 2 Cores, 4 GB RAM
Shared Resources - 50 GB disk
RAID 10 NVMe SSD - 250 Mbit/s
Unlimited traffic - Guaranteed availability
99% at application level
99.9% at network level - Data center Germany
ISO 27001 certified
- Discourse Community instance: 1
- Update management
- Backup management
Daily full backups, 14 days retention - Active monitoring
- SLA / DPA
Discourse Community hosting Premium
Premium
129 €/month
258 € setup
- Dedicated VM
VMware vSphere Private Cloud - 2 Cores, 4 GB RAM
Dedicated Resources - 50 GB disk
Redundant SSD Storage - 10 Gbit/s max
Unlimited traffic - Guaranteed availability
99.5% at application level
99.95% at network level - Data center France
ISO 27001, SOC 1, SOC 2 certified
- Discourse Community instance: 1
- Update management
- Backup management
Daily full backups, 14 days retention - Active monitoring
- SLA / DPA
Discourse Community hosting Enterprise
EnterpriseRequest a quote
You get exactly the environment your project needs. Briefly tell us what you have in mind – we will design the appropriate architecture and get back to you with a concrete proposal.
All prices plus statutory VAT.
Solutions for Agencies, brands and associations
Managed Discourse Community hosting details
Full feature list
| Item | Discourse Community Hosting Standard | Discourse Community Hosting Premium | Discourse Community Hosting Enterprise |
|---|---|---|---|
| Prices | 49 € monthly 98 € setup | 129 € monthly 258 € setup | On request |
| Application | |||
| Discourse Community instance | 1 | 1 | |
| Update management | ✔ | ✔ | |
| Backup management SaaS Web creates full backups of the application every day and keeps them for 7 or 14 days depending on the plan. | daily | daily | |
| Backup retention | 14 days | 14 days | |
| Monitoring With active monitoring from SaaS Web the core parameters of the server are checked every minute. If thresholds are reached, we step in to get things back to normal as quickly as possible. | ✔ | ✔ | |
| Hosting | |||
| Platform | Dedicated VM | Dedicated VM | The hosting setup can be customized individually:
|
| Infrastructure | OpenStack Public Cloud | VMware vSphere Private Cloud | |
| Performance | 2 Cores, 4 GB RAM | 2 Cores, 4 GB RAM | |
| Resources | Shared Resources | Dedicated Resources | |
| Disk | 50 GB | 50 GB | |
| Storage type | RAID 10 NVMe SSD | Redundant SSD Storage | |
| Usable storage | 50 GB local block storage | 50 GB private block storage | |
| Internet connectivity | 250 Mbit/s | 10 Gbit/s max | |
| Traffic | Unlimited | Unlimited | |
| Guaranteed availability | 99% at application level 99.9% at network level | 99.5% at application level 99.95% at network level | |
| Support | Ticket system, email, phone | Ticket system, email, phone | |
| SLA | ✔ | ✔ | |
| Data center | DE (Limburg) | FR (Roubaix) | |
| Certification | ISO 27001 | ISO 27001, SOC 1, SOC 2 | |
| Anwendung | |||
| Domains On request SaaS Web registers a domain free of charge and connects the booked service to that domain. | 1 domain from .at, .be, .ch, .de, .dk, .es, .eu, .fr, .lu, .nl | 1 domain from .at, .be, .ch, .de, .dk, .es, .eu, .fr, .lu, .nl | The application can be configured as desired:
|
| Install plugins | $40/plugin | $40/plugin | |
| Order | Order | Enquire | |
More about Discourse Community
Discourse is a modern open-source community platform launched in 2013 by Jeff Atwood, Robin Ward, and Sam Saffron. It is based on Ruby on Rails with a reactive frontend. It is one of the most popular forum systems worldwide—used by open-source projects, companies, media, and NGOs. Focus: real-time UX, strong community moderation, high extensibility, and seamless integrations.
Community Moderation & Trust Levels
Multi-stage trust levels, flagging, and review queues distribute moderation tasks to active members. Escalation paths, rate limits, and automatic spam detection reduce abuse without blocking legitimate posts. Permissions are transparently traceable and support scalable, fair community rules.
Modern Real-Time UX
Live updates, infinite scrolling, and an in-place editor promote fluid dialogues without page reloads. @Mentions, quotes, and contextual replies keep conversation threads clear. Keyboard shortcuts, draft autosave, and previews speed up writing and reduce abandonment.
Categories, Tags & Structure
Hierarchical categories and freely combinable tags organize content flexibly – from specialist forums to product communities. Users quickly find topics again via filters, bookmarks, and saved searches. The high-performance search scales with large amounts of content and delivers relevant results.
Mobile & PWA Support
Responsive design and PWA features bring app-like usage to every device – including offline capabilities and push notifications. Maintenance remains lean without separate mobile apps. Touch optimizations and adaptive layouts maintain readability even in long threads.
Rich Media & Embeds
Discourse generates automatic link previews (Onebox), embeds images/videos, and supports code blocks with syntax highlighting. Drag-and-drop uploads and media management simplify sharing. This results in context-rich, easy-to-read posts without external tools.
Notifications & Digest Emails
Fine-grained in-app and email alerts keep relevant discussions present. Weekly/daily digests reactivate inactive users with curated highlights. Watch/track settings provide control over frequency and content to avoid notification fatigue.
SSO, OAuth & Directory Services
Integration with SAML/OIDC, OAuth providers, or directory services enables centralized identities and permissions. Companies seamlessly connect Discourse with existing login flows. This ensures that access, roles, and offboarding remain consistent and audit-proof.
Plugins, Themes & Components
A stable plugin API, theme components, and customizable HTML/CSS allow for functional and brand adjustments without core forks. Updates thus remain maintainable. The large ecosystem pool covers use cases from gamification to support workflows.
Email Gateway (In/Out)
Topics and replies can be created via email; incoming messages are correctly assigned to threads. Bounce handling, address aliases, and templates support email-centric user groups. In this way, Discourse connects classic inboxes with modern web interaction.
Metrics, Moderation Tools & Security
Integrated reports, usage KPIs, and export functions support management and growth. Word filters, silencing/suspension, IP/rate limits, and Akismet integration increase security. Moderation interfaces are efficient, auditable, and designed for larger teams.
Frequently asked questions
Can an existing community be migrated to Discourse?
Yes. Importers exist for common forum systems (e.g., phpBB, vBulletin, XenForo, Vanilla). Posts, users, categories/tags, and attachments can be tested in a staging instance and then launched live with short downtime.
Is Discourse suitable for closed or private communities?
Yes. Discourse supports invite-only, private registration, invisible categories, and fine-grained permissions for groups/roles. This allows internal forums, partner areas, or customer communities to be operated securely – including moderated onboarding flows.
Can users participate via email (topics/replies, digests)?
Yes. Discourse offers an email gateway: topics can be started via email, and replies can be written via “Reply-by-Email.” Daily/weekly digest emails reactivate users, and individual notification rules keep relevant content present – without the need for constant login.
Partner Program
With our partner program you benefit from attractive discounts and low rates for development work – with no long-term commitment and no complicated requirements.
- SaaS Web Coins: up to 20% discount on hosting
- Lower hourly rates for development work
- WordPress plans: data protection package at half price
Developer friendly
Our services are interesting for developers too: we address their particular needs and deliberately support modern ways of working and individual setups.
- 1 month free
You build the website for your client, who takes over the hosting when it goes live. - SSH (SSH key access), SFTP access, Git integration
- Custom setup options
Testimonials
See how other customers use our solutions and what their experience has been.
SaaS Web provides a steady pulse in the background for us: Migrations, updates, peaks – everything runs smoothly. Custom setups are implemented pragmatically, releases happen without downtime, and for questions, you reach real engineers instead of getting stuck in ticket loops. This way, our energy remains focused on content and users – not on hosting.
STJA
With SaaS Web as our partner, our Managed Kirby platform runs smoothly: fast provisioning, professional customization for individual setups, and a genuine understanding of our requirements—allowing us to fully focus on creativity, development, and client results, while SaaS Web reliably takes care of the rest.
Bold and Bright LLC
SaaSWeb impresses with reliable SaaS hosting as well as the professional development of Craft CMS websites and applications. Projects are implemented efficiently and managed technically at the highest level.
Poli Marketing GmbH
The name says it all: SaaS Web!
Prompt support and our hosting packages are always up to date, whether for TYPO3, WordPress, or VM. This is very important for us as an agency—for all our projects, we receive well-thought-out solution proposals with alternatives.
T2U GmbH
Our customers
Many companies already rely on our solutions. Here is a selection of our customers.
With SaaS Web as our partner, our Managed Kirby platform runs smoothly: fast provisioning, professional customization for individual setups, and a genuine understanding of our requirements—allowing us to fully focus on creativity, development, and client results, while SaaS Web reliably takes care of the rest.
