BookStackApp vs Discourse

BookStackApp and Discourse (The 100% open source discussion platform built for the next decade of the Internet.) both appear on the Smoower Developer Ecosystem Index.

Discourse (rank #189) holds a modest lead over BookStackApp (rank #401) on the overall Smoower ecosystem score (50 vs 41). The gap of 9 points reflects composite signals across code, docs, community and reach.

On code quality (the state of repositories, tests, releases and polish), Discourse is ahead of BookStackApp. On education (docs, guides and learning material for developers), BookStackApp is ahead of Discourse. On community (issue response, PR reviews and discussion health), Discourse is slightly ahead of BookStackApp. On reach (how visible the ecosystem is beyond its own repos), BookStackApp is slightly ahead of Discourse. On momentum (release cadence and how fast the ecosystem moves), Discourse is ahead of BookStackApp.

BookStackApp carries 19,167 GitHub stars across 6 public repos, with 1 repositories active in the last 90 days and 5 external contributors on record. Discourse shows 55,678 stars across 620 public repos, 90 active in the last 90 days and 44 external contributors.

BookStackApp is the stronger read for anyone weighting education. Discourse looks better where code quality is the deciding factor. The table below breaks the scores down pillar by pillar; the linked profiles cover the underlying repos, docs and community signals in full.