discourse/docs/INSTALL.md
Tobias Eigen 71c6f70e9e Update INSTALL.md (#31097)
Added blurb and link to official hosting at the top
2025-02-27 00:21:38 +01:00

2.1 KiB

To install and self-host Discourse, follow the steps below. But if you'd rather skip the setup, maintenance, and server management, our official Discourse hosting takes care of everything for you.

👉 Learn more about Discourse hosting

How Do I Install Discourse?

🔔 The only officially supported installs of Discourse are Docker based. You must have SSH access to a 64-bit Linux server with Docker support. We regret that we cannot support any other methods of installation including cpanel, plesk, webmin, etc.

Simple 30 minute basic install: Beginner Docker install guide

Powerful, flexible, large / multiple server install: Advanced Docker install guide

Why do you only officially support Docker?

Hosting Rails applications is complicated. Even if you already have Postgres, Redis and Ruby installed on your server, you still need to worry about running and monitoring your Sidekiq and Rails processes, as well as configuring Nginx. With Docker, our fully optimized Discourse configuration is available to you in a simple container, along with a web-based GUI that makes upgrading to new versions of Discourse as easy as clicking a button.

Hardware Requirements

  • modern single core CPU, dual core recommended
  • 1 GB RAM minimum (with swap)
  • 64 bit Linux compatible with Docker
  • 10 GB disk space minimum

Software Requirements

Security

We take security very seriously at Discourse, and all our code is 100% open source and peer reviewed. Please read our security guide for an overview of security measures in Discourse.