Discourse
Your community. Your AWS account. Nobody else's platform.
A production-ready Discourse deployment in your own AWS account in about 20 minutes — the free, open-source forum platform, configured the way an AWS consultancy would do it for an enterprise client.
Deploy on AWS Marketplace →Community Forums With Full Ownership, No Monthly Ceiling
SaaS & Product Companies
Support and feedback forums that don't leak customer data to a third party.
Open Source Projects
Contributor discussion and issue triage in one place.
Media & Publishers
Comment communities you actually own the data for.
Education & Cohort Programs
Course discussion without a per-seat classroom tool.
Gaming & Fan Communities
A dedicated home base instead of renting space on someone else's platform.
Membership & Creator Communities
Paid community spaces that don't take a platform cut.
If your organization already runs — or wants to run — a community with more than a couple thousand active members, the next section shows why the flat cost usually wins outright.
Tiered Forum Pricing vs. One Flat Cost
| Discourse (Official Hosted) | Website Toolbox | Bettermode | This Pattern | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Price | $20/mo+ (Starter) | $39/mo+ | $399/mo (Self-Service) | $0.02/hr flat (~$14.60/mo) |
| Pricing model | Per organization, tiered | Per organization, tiered | Per organization | Per organization |
| Billing | Monthly/annual | Monthly/annual | Monthly/annual | Usage-based, cancel anytime |
| Data lives on | Discourse's servers | Website Toolbox's servers | Bettermode's servers | Your own AWS account |
| Cost as you grow | Escalates by tier as staff seats & email volume grow | Escalates by tier | Jumps to $18,000/yr at Mid-Market tier | Stays flat |
Pricing shown reflects each provider's published self-serve tiers as of 2026; Discourse's own top self-serve tier is reported anywhere from $300–500/mo depending on source, so confirm current rates directly before publishing. Feature sets differ meaningfully between tiers, so this compares hosting cost specifically, not full feature parity.
Hosted forum platforms typically range from about $20/month for a small starter plan to $500+/month once you need more staff seats, storage, and support — this pattern costs about $15/month flat, regardless of community size.
Free, Open-Source Community Software
Discourse's core software has always been free and open source — self-hosting it doesn't get you different software than the official hosted version, it gets you the same software with your community data off a third party's infrastructure.
Free & open-source, no license fees
Same software as the official hosted version
Community data stays in your infrastructure
No forced upgrade schedule or plan limits
Production-Ready, Following AWS Best Practices
This CloudFormation template and custom AMI deploy a complete Discourse environment — live in about 20 minutes.
Trust Levels
Built-in gamification and trust system for your community.
Real-Time Updates
Live notifications keep discussions moving.
Powerful Moderation
Comprehensive tools for community management.
Plugin Ecosystem
Extend functionality without forking the platform.
What's Easy to Get Wrong, Handled By Default
Correctly deploying and tuning Discourse's Ruby on Rails stack
Auto-scaling EC2 instances, configured and tuned for you
Configuring reliable transactional email delivery — a commonly cited Discourse pain point
SES email delivery, wired up by default
Tuning Redis and background job queues for real forum traffic
ElastiCache Redis, sized and configured for production
Setting up backups that are actually restorable
S3-backed uploads and backups, built in from day one
FOSSonCloud is built by Ordinary Experts, an AWS Consulting Partner working in Infrastructure as Code since 2014. This isn't a repackaged black-box AMI — the CloudFormation template is open source, so you can see exactly what's being deployed.
Architecture
This pattern deploys a complete Discourse infrastructure including:
- Auto-scaling EC2 instances
- RDS PostgreSQL database
- ElastiCache Redis for caching
- S3 for uploads and backups
- SES for email delivery
What You'll Need
Everything required to go from this page to a running Discourse deployment.
An AWS Account
With billing enabled and permission to launch resources in the region you plan to deploy to.
A Subscription to This Pattern on AWS Marketplace
Accepting the marketplace terms is what makes the CloudFormation template available to launch in your account.
A Registered Domain Name
Pointed at the infrastructure this pattern creates — needed for your community's public URL and SSL certificate.
IAM Permissions to Launch CloudFormation Stacks
The stack creates auto-scaling EC2 instances, an RDS database, ElastiCache, and an S3 bucket on your behalf.
About 20 Minutes
For the stack to finish launching before your community forum is live.
Up and Running in 4 Steps
Subscribe to the Discourse pattern on AWS Marketplace
Launch the CloudFormation stack in your AWS account
Configure your forum settings
Invite your community members — live in about 20 minutes
Self-Hosted Doesn't Mean Unsupported
Free Onboarding Session
A 1-hour call with a FOSSonCloud engineer, included with every deployment.
Ongoing Email Support
Direct line to support@fossoncloud.com whenever you need it.
Fully Open Source
Deploy on AWS Marketplace
Production-ready Discourse in your own AWS account, live in about 20 minutes.
Deploy on AWS Marketplace →