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What is oForum?

oForum is a minimal, fast, self-hostable forum application inspired by Hacker News. Built with simplicity in mind, it delivers all the features you need for a modern discussion platform without the bloat.
oForum compiles to a single binary and requires only PostgreSQL to run. No complex infrastructure, no JavaScript frameworks, no configuration hell.

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Key features

oForum provides a complete forum experience with:
  • Core functionality - Posts, comments, threaded replies, and upvoting
  • User profiles - Karma tracking, bios, display names, and leaderboard
  • Admin panel - User management, bans, roles, tags, and forum settings
  • Colored roles - Visual username badges based on user roles
  • Full-text search - Find posts and discussions quickly
  • Dark mode - Built-in theme switching
  • SEO optimized - Sitemap, robots.txt, and llms.txt support
  • No JavaScript frameworks - Pure server-rendered HTML for speed

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Design principles

oForum follows a strict philosophy that prioritizes simplicity and performance:
Everything compiles into one executable, including database migrations. Deploy by copying a single file.
One environment variable (DATABASE_URL), sensible defaults for everything else. No YAML files, no config directories.
HTML is generated on the server using Go templates. No client-side framework, no hydration, no bundle size concerns.
No ORM abstractions. Just pgx and handwritten queries that you can understand and optimize.
The entire dependency tree: Gin, pgx, bcrypt, golang-migrate. That’s it.
Pages render in milliseconds, the binary starts in under a second.

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Architecture overview

oForum’s architecture is deliberately simple: 
┌──────────────┐
│   oForum     │  ← Single Go binary (server-rendered HTML)
│   Binary     │
└──────┬───────┘
       │
       ↓
┌──────────────┐
│  PostgreSQL  │  ← Your database
│   Database   │
└──────────────┘
The binary contains:
  • HTTP server (Gin framework)
  • HTML templates (embedded)
  • Database migrations (embedded)
  • All application logic
Migrations run automatically on startup. You never need to run them manually unless you want to.

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Who should use oForum?

oForum is perfect for:

Small communities

Launch a discussion platform for your project, team, or community without managing complex infrastructure

Self-hosters

Run your own forum on a VPS, home server, or platform like Fly.io with minimal resource requirements

Developers

Study or extend a clean, readable codebase without layers of abstraction

Minimalists

Enjoy a fast, distraction-free forum without tracking, ads, or unnecessary features

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System requirements

To run oForum, you need:
  • Go 1.25+ (if building from source)
  • PostgreSQL (any recent version)
  • Linux or macOS (amd64 or arm64)
That’s it. No Docker required, no reverse proxy required (though recommended for production).

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Next steps

Quickstart

Get oForum running in 5 minutes

Installation

Detailed installation instructions for all platforms

Build docs developers (and LLMs) love

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