10+ Free and Open-source Self-hosted Questions and Answers Solutions Similar to Reddit and Stackoverflow

Reddit is an incredibly popular and influential social news aggregation and discussion website. Its millions of daily active users submit a variety of content, including links, text posts, and images, which are then voted up or down by other members. The content that receives the most votes rises to the top of the website's main page, providing unparalleled visibility and exposure. It's no wonder that Reddit has become one of the most powerful forces on the internet today.

Communities that use software similar to Reddit can provide a wide range of benefits to their members. Not only do they allow for the sharing of links, questions, and notes, but they also provide a platform for open discussion and collaboration. Members of these communities can connect with like-minded individuals and expand their knowledge on a variety of topics.

Additionally, the rating and ranking system encourages community members to contribute high-quality content and fosters healthy competition. Such communities can also serve as a valuable resource for researchers, as they provide insight into the interests and behaviors of a particular group of people. Overall, the use of software like Reddit can greatly enhance the online experience for individuals and communities alike.

While a Reddit-style website can be a great platform for communities to share and provide customer support, there are also alternative solutions available. You can find some of these open-source collections for customer support and community management here:

In this post we offer you a collection of an open-source and free solutions that you can install, self-hosted on your server to create Reddit-alike website, for your community or your customers.

1- Scoold

Scoold is a flexible Q&A platform for teams, inspired by Stack Overflow. It was created in 2008 as a social network for schools, but underwent major refactoring and was made open-source in 2017. Scoold is lightweight with approximately 7000 lines of code and can run on various platforms, including Heroku, DigitalOcean, AWS, Azure, or any VPS hosting provider. It doesn't require a database, and the controller logic is kept simple because all the heavy lifting is delegated to Para, a separate service. This makes it easy to read and learn, even for junior developers.

2- Roffline

Roffline is a revolutionary self-hosted application that provides a seamless browsing experience for Reddit users, even in the absence of an internet connection. Unlike other Reddit browsing solutions, Roffline allows you to access all types of content on Reddit, including media attached to posts, without any internet connection.

This makes Roffline a perfect solution for people with intermittent internet access who still want to stay updated on their favorite subreddits and topics. Furthermore, Roffline not only allows users to browse Reddit posts, but also enables them to create their own posts and interact with other users within the Roffline community. With Roffline, you can truly enjoy the full Reddit experience even when you're offline.

3- Teddit

teddit is a great option for those who are concerned about privacy and are looking for an alternative to the Reddit front-end. It is a free and open-source platform that prioritizes user privacy, making it a great option for those who are concerned about the security of their data. The platform draws inspiration from the popular Nitter project, which is known for its focus on privacy and security.

By using teddit, users can rest assured that their information is safe and secure, while still enjoying all of the great features that Reddit has to offer. Overall, teddit is a fantastic choice for anyone who values their privacy and security online and wants to enjoy a Reddit-like experience without having to worry about their data being compromised.

4- Answer

Answer is an open-source knowledge-based community software that enables you to establish a Q&A community effortlessly and quickly. Whether you need product technical support, customer support, or user communication, Answer has got you covered. With its intuitive interface and user-friendly features, Answer is the perfect solution for all your community-building needs. Furthermore, the software is constantly updated with the latest features and improvements, so you can be sure that your community will always be up-to-date and running smoothly.

Not only that, but Answer provides a safe and secure platform for your community, ensuring that your users' data is protected at all times.

5- Voten

Voten is an exceptional and visually appealing, open-source, highly customizable yet simple, and welcoming community platform. It is a platform that provides its users with a plethora of features that enhance their experience, including the ability to customize their profiles, create groups, and participate in discussions. Furthermore, the platform offers a variety of tools that make it easy for users to share content, including links, images, and videos.

Voten.co is a reliable platform that has been designed to bring people together and foster a sense of community. It is user-friendly and accessible to all, making it an ideal platform for anyone seeking to connect with like-minded individuals online.

6- View

View is a highly customizable and user-friendly forum software that is free and open-source. It is written using ReactJS and TypeScript, two powerful and modern web development technologies that ensure a seamless and responsive user experience. With View, you can easily create and manage your own online community, whether it is a small group of friends or a large-scale forum with thousands of active users.

One of the standout features of View is its flexibility and versatility, which allows you to customize virtually every aspect of your forum, from the layout and color scheme to the user permissions and moderation settings. This makes it easy to create a unique and personalized community that reflects your brand or interests. Additionally, View is designed to be lightweight and fast, with minimal dependencies and optimized performance, ensuring that your community members can easily access and contribute to your forum without any lag or delays.

View's feature highlight:

Discussions
- List discussions (with sorting, filtering, and paging)
- Create new discussion
- View discussion
- Create new message within a discussion
Users
- List users
- View user profile
- Edit profile and preferences
- View user activity (with tags and topics)
Tags
- List tags
- List discussions for each tag
- View and edit tag summary and description
- Select, edit, and create the tags associated with a question

7- Snew

Snew is a client that has been created as an open-source parody of Reddit, with the aim of providing users with a platform that is not subject to the pervasive censorship that has come to characterize Reddit. To achieve this, Snew is built upon the source code of Reddit, but has been forked to run entirely in the user's browser. By doing so, Snew is able to provide users with a seamless experience that is both familiar and intuitive.

One of the key features of Snew is its ability to pull content directly from the Reddit API and Pushshift.io, which ensures that users are able to access a wide range of content that is not subject to censorship. By doing so, Snew is able to provide users with a platform that is both open and transparent, allowing them to engage with the content that they are interested in without fear of censorship or reprisal.

8- Lemmy

Lemmy is a free and open-source social link aggregation and discussion platform that aims to bring individuals from all over the world together. Its content is organized into communities that allow easy subscription to topics of interest. By having different communities, Lemmy ensures that users can connect with others who share the same interests, hobbies, and passions.

Lemmy uses a unique voting system, where users can vote for their favorite items. The most popular and interesting items are then prioritized and displayed at the top of the list. This system ensures that the most relevant content is displayed to users.

Lemmy is licensed under the strong copyleft AGPL License, which can be found on GitHub. This license ensures that Lemmy remains free and open-source, allowing users to freely modify and distribute the code. There are many public communities available for free, and some communities also have private groups. By having private groups, Lemmy ensures that users can have discussions that are not accessible to the general public.

9- Libreddit

Libreddit is a private front-end for Reddit that allows you to browse content from r/unpopularopinion without being tracked. It's named after "libre" (meaning freedom) and "Reddit". Some of its features include being fast, written in Rust, lightweight, and free of JavaScript, ads, and tracking. Additionally, it ensures privacy by proxying all requests through the server and provides security by using a strong Content Security Policy to prevent browser requests to Reddit.

Libreddit — Rust application

Alternative private front-end to Reddit | Rust/Cargo package

Spikeand79 contributors

10- Saidit

SaidIt is a community-driven platform for online discussions, which is built upon the open-source code of Reddit. The platform is a continuation and fork of the original Reddit open source project, which was developed by the company Reddit Inc. SaidIt aims to provide a more transparent and decentralized alternative to Reddit, by enabling its users to create and moderate their own communities without the interference of a centralized authority. The platform also features various tools and functionalities that allow for more user engagement and customization, such as the ability to create custom themes and styles for individual subreddits.

11- Question2Answer

Question2Answer (Q2A) is a popular, free, and open source platform for creating question and answer websites. It is designed to run on the PHP programming language and uses the MySQL database management system. It is highly customizable, allowing users to tailor their Q&A site to their specific needs. With Q2A, you can create a community-driven knowledge base, a support forum, or any other type of Q&A site you can imagine. In addition, Q2A has a large and active community of users and developers who contribute to its ongoing development and improvement, providing even more features and functionality.

Conclusion

Reddit is a popular social news aggregation and discussion website where users submit content that is voted up or down by other members. Communities using similar software can enhance the online experience by providing a platform for open discussion and collaboration. Other Reddit alternatives include Scoold, Roffline, teddit, Answer, Voten.co, View, Snew, Lemmy, and Libreddit. For customer support and community management, Question2Answer is a popular and customizable platform for creating question and answer websites.