Hey everyone! 😂

I'm looking for alternatives to Reddit, preferably open-source, privacy-friendly, and with active communities.

What do you recommend, and why?

I've seen quite a few people here sharing the alternatives they're building. For those building an alternative, what are you offering that gives people a reason to try it? And if people are already using it, what seems to bring them back? I know that is is probably the most critical question and the hardest to answer, but i still want to ask it. Maybe we can learn from eachother.

Of course I'm working with a small team on a social platform too, so I'm particularly curious about the early days, when there might not be much activity yet. Have you focused on a particular interest or community? Brought an existing group over? Found that a specific feature matters more than you expected?

If yours is already running, have you noticed what makes people stick around? Was it something you expected when you started building it?

I don't think people will drop Reddit on the spot and start using an alternative, but finding a reason for users to use it on some regular basis seems like a good place to start.

(i know these are a lot of questions at once)

The internet is full of great communities. We want to make them easier to find.

Traditional forums have been around for decades. Some have been running for 20 years or longer, filled with valuable discussions, knowledge, and people who genuinely care about their interests.
But somewhere along the way, discovering these communities became increasingly difficult. Social media took over much of the internet, search engines changed, and many fantastic forums slowly disappeared from people's radar.
We believe it's time to do something about that.

Meet Foroverse, a discovery platform built around independent forums.

We've spent months developing Foroverse with one goal in mind: helping communities reach more people while making it easier for everyone to discover interesting discussions, follow their favourite forums, and find communities they never knew existed.
Think of it as a social media-like experience, but instead of another platform filled with endless recycled content, Foroverse brings together genuine discussions from independent communities across the web.
And the best part? Those communities remain completely independent.

Your community. Your rules.​

Let's make one thing clear: Foroverse is not here to replace traditional forums. Quite the opposite.
We're not interested in taking over communities, acquiring their content, or pulling members away from their favourite websites.

We want to help forums grow.

Foroverse gives your community an additional way to be discovered. Discussions from participating forums appear in a shared feed, allowing people to find interesting topics and discover the communities behind them.
When someone clicks on a discussion, they're taken directly to your forum.
Your community keeps its identity, members, rules, and content. You simply gain another opportunity to reach people who might otherwise never have found you.

Connect your forum in just a few clicks​

We've developed free integrations for four major community platforms:

• XenForo
• Invision Community
• WoltLab Suite
• ForumSpark

And we're already working on bringing more platforms into the mix! Or join now through RSS.
These integrations allow your forum to connect directly to Foroverse, keeping shared discussions updated automatically.

More importantly, you're always in control of what gets shared.

Choose which sections of your community should appear on Foroverse, decide whether to include thumbnails, author names, excerpts or full first posts, and change those settings whenever you like.
Private discussions remain private. Only content accessible to guests can be shared.
You can pause sharing or disconnect your community whenever you want.
And allow Single Sign on between Foroverse and multiple communities.

There's no complicated setup, and the integrations are completely free.

Explore our integrations and connect your forum

More than just another forum directory​

Foroverse goes quite a bit further than listing forums and displaying their latest topics.
Members can follow the communities they're interested in and build a personalised feed around the subjects they enjoy.
With account linking, members can connect their existing forum accounts to Foroverse. Where supported and enabled by the forum administrator, they can even reply to discussions, create topics and interact with communities directly through Foroverse, using their existing accounts. All of this happens while respecting the permissions, moderation rules and restrictions of the original community.
The idea is simple: make participating in different communities easier, without taking away what makes each one special.

We're only getting started​

At the moment, 18 communities have already joined Foroverse, bringing more than 40,000 discussions together in one place.

It's a modest beginning, but an encouraging one.
Imagine what this could become with hundreds, or eventually thousands, of independent forums participating.
Imagine having an interest in a particular hobby, game, profession or subject, and being able to discover discussions from dozens of communities dedicated to it. Including small, independent forums you would probably never have found through a search engine.
That's what we're working towards. And we want community owners and members to help shape it.

We're not pretending to have everything figured out. There will be improvements, new features, ideas that work and probably a few that don't. Feedback will play a major role in how Foroverse develops.

Let's make forums easier to discover again​

We've personally been involved with online communities for nearly 25 years, and we still believe traditional forums have an important place on the internet.

They offer something that's increasingly difficult to find elsewhere: organised discussions, lasting knowledge, genuine connections and communities built around shared interests.
We don't believe forums are dying. We believe they're becoming harder to find.
If we can help change that, even a little, then Foroverse will have achieved something worthwhile.

So, if you run a forum, we'd love to have you join us. Connecting is free, you remain in complete control, and your community might just be discovered by its next group of enthusiastic members.

And if you're simply someone who enjoys discovering new communities, come explore. You never know what hidden gems you might find.

Who knows, perhaps together we can bring a little bit of that old internet feeling back. :)