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Talkyard vs Simple Machines Forum: catalog facts
Talkyard	Simple Machines Forum
Freemium Self-hosting is free; the hosted service offers a free trial.	Free Free and open source under the BSD-3-Clause license.
Web, Self-hosted	Self-hosted
Combines forum, Q&A, idea voting and blog comments in one tool Optional anonymous comments	Release packages install without extra build steps Permissive BSD license
Chat features are basic Documentation is incomplete	Traditional forum layout rather than a modern discussion interface Needs a PHP and database server to host
Self-hosted, Hosted service	Self-hosted
Open source	Open source
License: AGPL-3.0	License: BSD-3-Clause
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.