What is good forum software to add to an existing Rails application?

Question

Should be easy to setup, and easy to couple application and forum users.

Answer 1

Beast and RForum are the two that I know of.

Answer 2

There's really a lack of really featureful forum available that's developed for Rails, my best suggestion is to write one yourself. With Rails, it should jsut be a few days work getting one going.

Answer 3

As long as your UsersController is RESTful, you could use Beast and just modify it to use your existing app's User model instead via ActiveResource. You'd have to copy the model and controller functions from Beast over to your existing app.

The best overall option if you need something tightly integrated and robust would be to add your own forum functionality to your app, though.

Answer 4

Beast would be a good choice, given it's small size and flexibility.

I also found Savage Beast which claims to add better Rails integration(comes as a Rails plugin) and extended functionality.

Answer 5

I've been working on a resourceful plugin for forums that obviates the difficulties of integrating two distinct Rails applications - it's still in somewhat rough form, but you can check it out on GitHub.

Answer 6

The Beast forum appears to be no longer maintained so I think that is a bad option.

My net searching appears to have found the following forums

• Ruby Forum : http://www.ruby-forum.com/
• Beast 2 : http://code.google.com/p/savage-beast-2/
• Opinion : http://code.google.com/p/opinionforum/

As to which is better I can't say as we are still investigating. We need single sign on and since no forums appear to do this easily or natively, it appears the ruby forum's landscape is still quite young. Which is a pity as this is an area that could really do with someone taking it a step forward.

Answer 7

Hi,

I wrote one called rBoard: http://github.com/radar/rboard. Very easy to couple to application and users.

Answer 8

There's also Altered Beast, which is a rewrite of Beast http://github.com/courtenay/altered_beast