16

Stack Exchange has great features, but does not empower groups of people to set up and host their own Q&A site, quickly or privately.

What other web-based Q&A software options exist that might compete with Stack Exchange, specifically by being free and open source?

Improve this question
6
  • 1
    Do you want self-hosted alternatives? – Undo Apr 1 '15 at 15:22
  • 1
    Yes, self-hosted is what I'm most interested in. – Sean Apr 1 '15 at 15:24
  • 11
    Although most of us know Stack Exchange ;), you should still list which features you need (you likely don’t need a 100% clone, do you?). See How to ask for an alternative to some software. There are many "clones", see Stack Exchange clones. – unor Apr 1 '15 at 17:30
  • 1
    Note that I got initial quotes for SE implementation at my work (I run large internal systems group) and I was quoted in the deep 6 figures. Basically we could pay that much but it would take a complete buy-in from several sectors and tons of CHANGE. It is too bad they don't off a more tiered rollout to get companies going. I know at my company we can't get people to quit making docs, let alone post everything in Q&A... so I can see the need for opensource. SE really doesn't have a good internal business model. – blankip Sep 22 '15 at 23:02
  • 2
    alternativeto.net/software/stackoverflow/… – sondra.kinsey Jan 15 '20 at 14:04
3

Here are some free/open-source self hosted alternatives to Stack Exchange,

LampCMS

LampCMS is an full-featured Open Source Question and Answers web program written in PHP with deep integration with Facebook, Twitter, Google, Linked-IN, Tumblr and Blogger APIs. It uses MongoDB as a database to achieve speed and scalability.

LampCMS User Interface

Improve this answer
2
3

Talkyard is new (year 2018) open source Q&A software, inspired by StackOverflow, and forum software like Discourse.

In addition to Q&A topics and categories, you can have open-ended discussions, and Slack like chat channels. So people can go to your place, not just for Q&A, but also for talking and being social. You can have private staff categories & chat.

Here's an example discussion — copied from StackExchange/StackOverflow: (cc-by-sa license) https://insightful.demo.talkyard.io/-7/how-do-i-get-myself-out-of-bed-in-the-morning

Talkyard is beta software currently (May 2018) and I'm developing it. GitHub repo here, and SaaS hosting here. Screenshot:

Answers to how-to-wake-up-on-time

(The posts are from this StackExchange question, license: cc-by-sa-3.0)

Improve this answer
3
  • 2
    Talkyard seems to be a nice approach, however it seems that one of the core features of stackexchange i.e. the vote and reputation system is missing right now. – student Mar 15 '20 at 8:39
  • 3
    @student — yes the reputation system is missing. It's a pretty popular feature request, and I'm thinking about implementing it the nearest weeks / months. – KajMagnus Mar 17 '20 at 1:00
  • @student — Votes: Hmm, there're Like votes that work fairly much like StackOverflow upvotes, but are displayed differently, and currently not directly visible on the question list page. I think it'd be nice with config options so one could choose to make the Like vote, and a Disagree vote Talkyard has, behave / look-like StackOverflow's votes. – KajMagnus Mar 17 '20 at 1:03
2

You can try Wordpress together with the DW Question & Answer plugin.

The plugin builds a complete Q&A system for your WordPress site, like Quora or Stackoverflow. It supports multi-languages, shortcodes, reCAPTCHA, email notification system and so on.

User interface screen shot:

DW Question & Answer User Interface

Improve this answer
1

One alternative is Askbot, built on Django (Python). The source is located here:

https://github.com/ASKBOT/askbot-devel

From the Readme:

Commercial hosting of Askbot and support are available at https://askbot.com

And the license section:

Askbot software is licensed under GPL, version 3.

Improve this answer
0

OSQA

OSQA is a free, entry-level Q&A system from the makers of AnswerHub, the market-leading professional Q&A platform. OSQA is a great solution for smaller sites with limited needs.

OSQA User Interface

Improve this answer
2
  • The project doesn't seem to be active anymore. – student Mar 15 '20 at 8:39
  • @student Link updated, that's unfortunate though – Tom Mar 15 '20 at 19:26
0

You could try TopAnswers

TopAnswers is what Stack Overflow should be: focused on communities and knowledge sharing, not profit. We share some of the same aims:

  • Focus on questions and answers. Everything else we do is to help us produce useful questions and answers.
  • Keep the signal:noise ratio high with a voting system that helps good answers float to the top.
  • Build communities of experts across a diverse range of subjects.
Improve this answer

Your Answer

By clicking “Post Your Answer”, you agree to our terms of service, privacy policy and cookie policy

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged or ask your own question.