I tried to use Discourse but the hardware and software requirements combined would have meant a $20+&#x2F;month VM rather than a $10&#x2F;month VM:<p>- Dual core CPU recommended<p>- 1 GB RAM minimum (with swap)<p>- 64 bit Linux compatible with Docker<p>- Postgres 9.3+ (2 GB RAM min?).<p>- Redis 2.6+<p>- Ruby 2.0+ (we recommend 2.0.0-p353 or higher)<p>Ultimately I wound up putting PHPBB with a different skin back on the server, since it just requires MySQL, PHP, and any web server.<p>Plus Discourse has a lot of strange features (e.g. auto-mod promotion) and it feels like it is still in beta based on the feedback they get on their own forums.<p>And don&#x27;t get me started on the docker-based setup. If you want a local native install (no docker container) well, you cannot. Docker or nothing.<p>The whole product feels extremely convoluted and over-engineered.