# Discourse vs NGINX

> Two self-hosted projects, compared on the numbers selfhost.directory tracks live: score, popularity, release cadence and setup effort.

| | Discourse | NGINX |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 83/100 | 84/100 ✓ |
| Rank in category | #1 of 69 in Social Networks & Forums | #2 of 12 in Web Servers |
| GitHub stars | 48 024 ✓ | 31 998 |
| Stars, last 30 days | +135 | +277 ✓ |
| Stable releases, 12 months | 1 | 21 ✓ |
| Latest release | _gh-attach-assets · 15 Jul 2026 | release-1.31.8 · 21 Oct 2026 ✓ |
| Setup | Moderate | Moderate ✓ |
| Official Docker image | Yes | Yes |
| License | GPL-2.0 | BSD-2-Clause |
| Main language | Ruby | C |

## Which one should you pick?

NGINX scores 84/100 against 83/100 for Discourse, so it is the safer default.

NGINX ships more often: 21 stable releases in the past year, against 1 for Discourse.

NGINX is growing faster right now (+277 stars in 30 days).

## Details

- [Discourse](https://selfhost.directory/project/discourse) (markdown: https://selfhost.directory/project/discourse.md)
- [NGINX](https://selfhost.directory/project/nginx) (markdown: https://selfhost.directory/project/nginx.md)

## Related comparisons

- [Discourse vs Rocket.Chat](https://selfhost.directory/compare/discourse-vs-rocketchat)
- [Discourse vs Zulip](https://selfhost.directory/compare/discourse-vs-zulip)

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Source: https://selfhost.directory/compare/discourse-vs-nginx