Khoros Communities

Best Self Hosted Alternatives to Khoros Communities

A curated collection of the 2 best self hosted alternatives to Khoros Communities.

Khoros Communities is a SaaS platform that helps brands build and manage online customer communities and forums, enabling peer-to-peer support, moderated discussion, knowledge base integration, and analytics to drive engagement and improve customer service.

Alternatives List

#1
Discourse

Discourse

Open source forum software with real-time discussions, powerful moderation, SSO, and integrations—built for long-lived, searchable community knowledge.

Discourse screenshot

Discourse is an open source discussion platform for building community forums that feel real-time like chat but retain the structure and long-term value of threaded discussions. It is designed to be searchable, mobile-friendly, and highly moderatable, with extensive customization and integration options.

Key Features

  • Trust levels, flagging, review queue, and granular moderation tools
  • Rich post composer with Markdown support, quoting, mentions, and uploads
  • Categories, tags, and full-text search for organizing and discovering content
  • Real-time updates (live topics/notifications) plus email-in/out style participation
  • Single Sign-On and multiple authentication providers via built-in support/plugins
  • Admin console for site settings, user management, and analytics dashboards
  • Extensible plugin/theme system (Theme Components) for UI and behavior changes
  • API and webhooks for automation and external integrations

Use Cases

  • Product/company community forums with announcements, Q&A, and support deflection
  • Open source project discussion hub replacing mailing lists and fragmented threads
  • Private team/customer portals for structured discussions and knowledge capture

Limitations and Considerations

  • Heavier operational footprint than simple PHP forums (requires Redis and PostgreSQL)
  • Many advanced capabilities depend on correct email deliverability and configuration

Discourse is well-suited for communities that need durable, searchable conversations with strong moderation and governance. Its extensibility, integrations, and modern UX make it a common replacement for legacy forums and mailing-list-based support channels.

46kstars
8.8kforks
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#2
Rocket.Chat

Rocket.Chat

Self-hosted team chat platform with channels, DMs, voice/video, rich integrations, and omnichannel customer support features.

Rocket.Chat screenshot

Rocket.Chat is an open-source communications platform for team messaging and customer engagement. It provides persistent chat (channels and direct messages), collaboration features, and enterprise-grade controls, and can be extended via apps, integrations, and APIs.

Key Features

  • Public/private channels, direct messages, threads, reactions, mentions, and file sharing
  • Omnichannel inbox for customer support (live chat widget, queueing/routing, agents, transcripts)
  • Audio/video meetings and screen sharing (deployment-dependent), plus voice messages
  • Federation support (Rocket.Chat Federation) to connect separate Rocket.Chat servers
  • Strong administration features: roles/permissions (RBAC), audit logs, retention policies, and compliance tooling (plan-dependent)
  • SSO/identity integrations (e.g., SAML/OIDC/LDAP) and granular access controls
  • Extensive integrations and automation: webhooks, REST APIs, bots, and a marketplace/app framework
  • Multi-platform clients (web, desktop, mobile) and localization support

Use Cases

  • Internal team chat for organizations that need control over deployment and data
  • Customer support and sales chat using an embedded website live-chat widget
  • Cross-organization collaboration via federation between independently operated servers

Limitations and Considerations

  • Some advanced security/compliance and omnichannel features may be gated by licensing/plan
  • Real-time performance and search depend on sizing and backing services (notably MongoDB)

Rocket.Chat is a mature, widely deployed Slack alternative that combines team chat with customer messaging workflows. It is best suited to organizations that want extensibility, admin controls, and optional omnichannel support in one platform.

44.3kstars
12.9kforks
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Why choose an open source alternative?

  • •Data ownership: Keep your data on your own servers
  • •No vendor lock-in: Freedom to switch or modify at any time
  • •Cost savings: Reduce or eliminate subscription fees
  • •Transparency: Audit the code and know exactly what's running