The Showdown
Discoursevsfirestorm
Why pay monthly fees for Discourse when you can self-host firestorm for free? Let's look at the facts.
VS
Discourse
The Expensive Option
- Closed Source (Black box)
- Expensive monthly fees per user
- Data stored on their servers
WINNER
firestorm
The Freedom Choice
- 100% Open Source Code
- Free forever (Self-hosted)
- You own your data completely
Interactive Calculator
Calculate Your "SaaS Tax"
SaaS pricing is designed to scale with your success.
See how much wealth transfers from your bank account to Discourse's shareholders.
10 people
150100200+
$
*Estimated standard pricing for Discourse. Adjust if needed.
Estimated Annual Waste
$1,440
Monthly Burn Rate$120
5-Year Projection$7,200
Cost with Self-Hosted$0
Calculations based on 10 users at $12/mo.
Detailed Breakdown
0
Standard Ruby/JS scaling limits
Erlang VM (BEAM) efficiency
1
JavaScript runtime errors
Elm-enforced type safety
2
Polling or standard WebSockets
Real-time via Phoenix Channels