Simple Machines Forum
Free, professional grade software package that allows you to set up your own online community within minutes.
- Social & Forums
- PHP
- BSD-3-Clause
- Actively maintained
GitHub stats
- GitHub stars
- 750
- Forks
- 269
- Open issues
- 137
- Commits, last 12 months
- 1,433
- Last commit
- Oct 4, 2026
- Latest release
- v2.1.7Mar 8, 2026
- Created
- Jan 24, 2012
Data from the GitHub API, refreshed daily.
About Simple Machines Forum
Free, professional grade software package that allows you to set up your own online community within minutes. Simple Machines Forum is open source under the BSD-3-Clause license and written mainly in PHP, so you can read the code, run it on your own hardware and keep full control of your data.
The project has 750 stars and 269 forks on GitHub, with 1,433 commits over the last year. It installs natively rather than through an official Docker image, so plan for a short manual setup.
Topics
- smf
- php
- forum
- mysql
- mysqli
- postgresql
- bsd-3-clause
- simplemachines
- simplemachinesforum
Repository preview
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What is Simple Machines Forum?
Simple Machines Forum is a free, open-source app you can host on your own server, listed in our Social & Forums category. Free, professional grade software package that allows you to set up your own online community within minutes. The source code lives at github.com/SimpleMachines/SMF, where it has 750 stars.
Is Simple Machines Forum free and open source?
Yes. Simple Machines Forum is open-source software released under the BSD-3-Clause license, so you can self-host it at no cost. You only pay for the server it runs on, and some projects also offer an optional paid cloud plan.
Can I run Simple Machines Forum with Docker?
Simple Machines Forum does not list an official Docker image. It installs natively (PHP), so follow the install steps in its README or look for a community-maintained container.
What are the best alternatives to Simple Machines Forum?
Popular open-source alternatives to Simple Machines Forum include Mastodon, Discourse and Flarum.
Is Simple Machines Forum actively maintained?
The most recent commit to Simple Machines Forum was on Oct 4, 2026 with 1,433 commits in the past twelve months. The latest release is v2.1.7, published Mar 8, 2026. Check the open issues on GitHub to gauge how quickly maintainers respond.