Disciple vs Flarum Comparison 2026
Both cover community platforms. Here is what separates them on price, billing, what you can take with you, and coverage.
At a glance
- Only Flarum has a free tier.
Side by side
Disciple | Flarum | |
|---|---|---|
| Starting price | From $399 | Free |
| Pricing model (they differ) | Paid subscription | Free |
| Free tier (they differ) | No | Yes |
| Billing | Monthly or annual | Not stated |
| Free trial | Not stated | Not stated |
| API | Yes | Not stated |
| Data export | Everything, in an open format | Not stated |
| Their cut | None | Not stated |
| Runs on (they differ) | Web, iOS, Android |
Shaded rows are where the two answers disagree and both listings have answered. A row where one side has not stated a fact is left plain, because silence is not a difference.
Disciple
Your community as an app in the app stores
Disciple builds a branded community app and puts it in the Apple and Google stores under your name, rather than sending members to a website that happens to work on a phone. It takes nothing from what members pay, which matters at the price it charges. That price starts at several hundred a month, so it is a business decision rather than an experiment.
Our note
Zero transaction fees against a high fixed cost is the whole shape of this, and it favours communities already collecting real money. Below roughly $8,000 a month in member revenue, a platform taking a percentage costs less.
Only on this side
- Covers memberships & subscriptions
Flarum
Forum software you host yourself
Flarum is forum software installed on your own server, so the discussion, the members and the domain belong to whoever runs it rather than to a platform. Extensions add what the core deliberately leaves out. There is no hosted tier and no monthly fee, which trades a bill for the work of running it. Anybody who does not want to think about PHP, a database and backups should buy hosted community software instead.
Ratings are the average of reviews readers left. The facts are stated by each tool’s own listing and are not verified by CloutStack. How we make money.