Ask HN: Any open source stack exchange clone

[yogrish]

In our organization we are looking for Stack exchange / Reddit / HN like clone that can used for "discussion threads on some technical topics". Any suggestions. We use Teams chat but UI for this purpose is not useful.

[dsr_]

The software is QPixel. It was built specifically to be an open-source discussion system a la Stack Exchange.

The largest public instance of it that I know of is codidact.com; codidact.org is the sponsoring organization.

https://github.com/codidact/qpixel

[jebus989]

In the bioinformatics sphere there is this MIT-licensed Stack Exchange clone: https://github.com/ialbert/biostar-central

[cpach]

Discourse might be an option

https://www.discourse.org/

[frafra]

I tried that. Containerized setup require running a custom script of theirs using root. The Docker image is a monolith running multiple servers and database within it. Those are a dealbreaker for many sysadmins, unluckily.

[skbly7]

Plus, these plugins to achieve similar functionality: https://meta.discourse.org/t/thoughts-on-a-plugin-which-turn...

[pxeger1]

Codidact is a literal direct competitor to StackExchange, and it's open-source: https://codidact.org/

[mattbrewsbytes]

I explored this a bit and found there is a threshold of "too many tools" where people won't follow things on yet another thing that sends them notifications.

I think the magic number is 4: email, chat, wiki, tickets - we don't do much email so more like 3. The problem is none of those are good at longer technical discussions. With chat, threads beyond a day or so in the past are clunky to revive and follow. Wiki is better at finalized docs, tickets are short lived and any technical discussion should be settled by the time someone is working an item.

Really curious if others have found solutions.

[djbusby]

I route all notifications into email. And I don't install apps. But most tools have a link in their notification email and a click takes me into the WebUI.

Teams I work with use GDocs for editing group knowledge things, then export to Runbook.

[nicoburns]

We use Google docs for this. They’re live editable, and also support out of flow comments.

[nonameiguess]

Are you looking for something hosted by another organization? I'd say just use the old version of Reddit from when it was still open source as long as you're willing to self-host (https://github.com/reddit-archive/reddit/wiki/Install-guide). I believe that is what Less Wrong originally did. The features that Reddit has added since don't seem useful to me anyway.

[tech234a]

Are there any examples of self-hosted Reddit that are still online? I’m curious how it works.

[rgovostes]

For a Stack Exchange-alike, the ROS project hosts one at https://answers.ros.org which is powered by Askbot (https://askbot.com/), which says it is an open source Django app, but I didn’t see the code at a quick glance.

[frafra]

Latest release is from 2015: https://github.com/ASKBOT/askbot-devel/tags.

[pushcx]

The Lobsters codebase is available, it's a straightforward Rails app with few dependencies: https://github.com/lobsters/lobsters

[wturner]

I used this about a decade ago. No complaints. https://github.com/q2a/question2answer

[jsiepkes]

There is TalkYard: https://www.talkyard.io/

[somat]

A forum, stack exchange is an instance of the forum pattern of communication.

[jolmg]

https://www.codidact.org/

[jfkw]

https://github.com/LemmyNet/lemmy

"... Lemmy is similar to sites like Reddit, Lobste.rs, or Hacker News: you subscribe to forums you're interested in, post links and discussions, then vote, and comment on them. Behind the scenes, it is very different; anyone can easily run a server, and all these servers are federated (think email), and connected to the same universe, called the Fediverse."

[afterburner5]

We're currently in the process of leveraging Github discussions for that.

[Shorn]

How is that working out for you?

I’m strongly considering it for our team. We use Slack threads and it’s not working for us, at all. We need more openness too.

[labarilem]

Which are the features you need the most?

[FearlessNebula]

Discourse

[geoduck14]

Stack Overflow for Teams

[ms4720]

Google nntp

[rambojazz]

Q2A

[kurtreed]

Scoold