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Simple Machines Forum vs Talkyard: catalog facts
Simple Machines Forum	Talkyard
Free Free and open source under the BSD-3-Clause license.	Freemium Self-hosting is free; the hosted service offers a free trial.
Self-hosted	Web, Self-hosted
Release packages install without extra build steps Permissive BSD license	Combines forum, Q&A, idea voting and blog comments in one tool Optional anonymous comments
Traditional forum layout rather than a modern discussion interface Needs a PHP and database server to host	Chat features are basic Documentation is incomplete
Self-hosted	Self-hosted, Hosted service
Open source	Open source
License: BSD-3-Clause	License: AGPL-3.0
Not stated if an account is needed	Not stated if an account is needed
Not stated if it works offline	Not stated if it works offline
Official website Full listing and sources Checked October 2, 2026	Official website Full listing and sources Checked October 2, 2026

Catalog facts only. Anything “not stated” is unconfirmed. Check full listings for details.