Circle is $89 or more a month — over $1,068 a year — for a community suite where the part your members actually open daily is the discussion board. Forumly is that board, done properly. $39 once, on a $5 VPS with Docker or as a desktop app, all of it in one SQLite file you can back up with a copy-paste.

• Categories, threads, replies — One-level nesting for readability, thread pinning and locking, and new-since-your-last-visit indicators.
• Reactions — A six-emoji reaction set with toggling and per-member state.
• Member profiles — Avatar or generated initials, bio, join date, post count and a manual-award badge system.
• Notifications — Reply-to-your-thread and @mention notifications with an unread bell (email digest is a stub — wire your own SMTP).
• Search — Across thread titles and post bodies, with snippets.
• Moderator tools — Pin, lock, delete any post or thread, ban members, award badges and manage categories behind a separate admin password.
• Spam defense on every write — A hidden honeypot that gives bots a fake success, a minimum time-to-post, and a per-IP sliding-window rate limit, all tunable via env.

Runs as a Windows desktop app or on any $5 VPS (Docker included).

What’s included:

• Full source code (MIT): https://github.com/bensblueprints/community-forum
• Lifetime v1 updates
• Setup guide (README quick start)