Discourse is an open-source community discussion platform that merges traditional forums, mailing-list workflows, and real-time conversations into a mobile-first interface. This guide deploys Discourse on Ubuntu 24.04 using the official installer, which handles Docker setup, configuration generation, and automatic Let's Encrypt HTTPS. By the end, you'll have a Discourse forum running securely at your domain with the community dashboard ready.
Prerequisite: A Discourse ID account at id.discourse.com. Custom domain or a free discourse.diy subdomain works.
Claim a Free Subdomain (Optional)
If you don't have a custom domain:
Visit https://id.discourse.com/my/subdomain.
