I've always been a fan of forums. Ever since I was 12 years old, I was heavily involved in forums and building communities.

Over the years I used phpBB, vBulletin and other solutions I can't even remember now.

The past few weeks I've been looking around on how to build up a community around book lovers, since I already have a good following on Facebook and I could funnel that traffic to a community of my own.

After weeks of thinking what could I do, I started looking around social networks. But I didn't find what I was looking for, so I thought of building a forum.

Problem was that phpBB and all those solutions are old (I stopped coding in PHP since version 3...), I wasn't that convinced on going that route.

After installing MyBB I was convinced I couldn't build a community on that. It looked so 2000. Plus, developing something for it would be a pain in the ass for me.

So then I tried BuddyPress and bbPress... I even bought a $59 theme for it which I couldn't get a refund for it. It was slow and clumsy, I couldn't understand the interface, hell... this wasn't what I was looking for. I almost quit my plans.

But after looking around for modern forum softwares... I found several SaaS solutions which looked wonderful. But I prefer to run things in my own place. You know that saying "Never build your house on someone else's land", well it's true. It happened to me in real life and happened to me in virtual land too (specially after Facebook's last algorithm update which lowered my page's reach).

I searched for self-hosted solutions and found Discourse and it looked very nice to me. I thought "this is it, I think I can work with this". Then I went to see the specs.

Man, that didn't look good.

Installation guide? Awful. I mean, I'm no noob to this world, but the whole process was a pain in the ass.

Then I got this bright idea...

"I've been coding stuff in node.js for the past year, and I feel comfortable on it. I wonder...

Is there a node.js forum software that's modern and I could work with?"

I wasn't sure before asking "know-it-all" Google. My experience with CMS in node is that they are still very basic.

If only there was something interesting...

So I typed... "node forum software". And I hit "enter".

I found nodeBB.

It looked very, very interesting.

Looks modern and felt sharp and crispy. Check.
Responsive theme. Check.
Plugins. Check.
Installation. Bit of a pain in the ass, but fine after tweaking around with the server and other things. Check.
Stability. 290 users registered, 22,000 pageviews in one day. Seems fine so far. Check.

And so far, I've been checking the documents and started to modify some things along the way.

Then I hit a roadblock with one of the plugins. I submitted an issue request in their git plugin. I see it's from one of the coders for this software @julian. He answered a couple minutes later.

Superb. Awesome. I never write so much, but the whole experience has made me write this post.

I hope to be able to contribute with plugins in the nearby future. I'm really grateful.

Done Love it.

http://github.com/estebanconstante/nodebb-plugin-postmentions

@countach If you know JS you can pretty much do anything in NodeBB. I'm doing it with my forum and building the rewards system and customizing it for the needs of my users.

For the app development I'll be doing it in Corona and I'll use NodeBB's API to connect to the forum.

Hey @Adam-Poniatowski 256 GB SSD disk, 64 GB RAM, dedicated server on Dreamhost

Awesomeness. Let's see how it goes

Hey guys, I have a lot of users coming to my forum and it would be easier if I could mention the posts (automatically create the link), maybe using "&" or some other key (to avoid issues with the mentions system)

@pichalite I also run a wordpress website and another node app in there... the overkill part is the wordpress site

@Giggiux Awesome! Haven't seen the first two links (I'm actually using the mentions plugin as the base :)). Thanks a lot!

Here are some NodeBB installations that don't work anymore

@baris said in Who is using NodeBB?:

Let's keep a list of NodeBB installations here :

35Hz can't connect to it
Notepad++ Community
Kamloops Makerspace
Expii
Afraid to ask
Kubuckets
Bitbangers
Jointcrackers ngix server 502 Bad Gateway error
Lost Decade Games redirects to nodebb.org
MangoLassi
MySensors
CryptoFR
PURE DATA Forum
VPSie nginx server 502 Bad Gateway error
SPFLForum can't connect
Gruppe Adler
Jenkler
RCAA World can't connect
Ventsols can't connect
Tummenur.nu
Star.aow.me can't connect
The Options Forum
Libgdx can't connect
GamersTavern can't connect
VSquare USES VBULLETIN! #WTF
Galaxy Graph
Gamrhaus
Reel Fishing Talkcan't connect
Meaxplay can't connect
Battle Realms France
Motorcycle News
Openbadges
Pichalite (Test forum)
MIUI Norge
Qt
MyTechZone
NodeBB.se
Exo.do
ITProTV
Geek.tj can't connect
Radxa can't connect
Meizufans
Badminton Birdie can't connect
Fbloggers can't connect
LowMyPrice sends me to another site
DriverPack Forums i think it was hijacked by spammers
The Daily WTF

If you are running your own NodeBB let us know we will add it to the list!

@pitaj So far I haven't been able to test the traffic spikes as I haven't had any lately

I did found a typo in my nginx file which I've fixed already and it seems to run better. I'll report back as soon as I get more data.

@pitaj fixed it. Thanks! I was trying with single and double `

Here it's the conf file:

upstream io_nodes {
    ip_hash;
    server 127.0.0.1:4567;
    server 127.0.0.1:4568;
    server 127.0.0.1:4569;
    server 127.0.0.1:4570;
    server 127.0.0.1:4571;
    server 127.0.0.1:4572;
    server 127.0.0.1:4573;
    server 127.0.0.1:4574;

    #16 cores:
    server 127.0.0.1:4575;
    server 127.0.0.1:4576;
    server 127.0.0.1:4577;
    server 127.0.0.1:4578;
    server 127.0.0.1:4579;
    server 127.0.0.1:4580;
    server 127.0.0.1:4581;
    server 127.0.0.1:4582;
}

server {
    listen       80;
    server_name  myserver.tld;
    return       301 http://www.myserver.tld$request_uri;
}
server {
    listen 80;
    server_name www.myserver.tld;
    proxy_set_header X-Real-IP $remote_addr;
    proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-For $proxy_add_x_forwarded_for;
    proxy_set_header Host $http_host;
    proxy_set_header X-NginX-Proxy true;
    proxy_redirect off;
    # Socket.io Support
    proxy_http_version 1.1;
    proxy_set_header Upgrade $http_upgrade;
    proxy_set_header Connection "upgrade";
    gzip            on;
    gzip_min_length 1000;
    gzip_proxied    off;
    gzip_types      text/plain application/xml text/javascript application/javascript application/x-javascript text/css application/json;
    location @nodebb {
        proxy_pass http://io_nodes;
    }
    location ~ ^/assets/(.*) {
        root /home/myuser/nodebb/;
        try_files /build/public/$1 /public/$1 @nodebb;
    }
    location /plugins/ {
        root /home/myuser/nodebb/build/public/;
        try_files $uri @nodebb;
    }
    location / {
        proxy_pass http://io_nodes;
    }
}

@julian Just checked my nginx conf, it's basically the same as the one in the tutorial:

upstream io_nodes {
    ip_hash;
    server 127.0.0.1:4567;
    server 127.0.0.1:4568;
    server 127.0.0.1:4569;
}

> server {
    listen 80;
    server_name community.nodebb.org;
    proxy_set_header X-Real-IP $remote_addr;
    proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-For $proxy_add_x_forwarded_for;
    proxy_set_header Host $http_host;
    proxy_set_header X-NginX-Proxy true;
    proxy_redirect off;
    # Socket.io Support
    proxy_http_version 1.1;
    proxy_set_header Upgrade $http_upgrade;
    proxy_set_header Connection "upgrade";
    gzip            on;
    gzip_min_length 1000;
    gzip_proxied    off;
    gzip_types      text/plain application/xml text/javascript application/javascript application/x-javascript text/css application/json;
    location @nodebb {
        proxy_pass http://io_nodes;
    }
    location ~ ^/assets/(.*) {
        root /path/to/nodebb/;
        try_files /build/public/$1 /public/$1 @nodebb;
    }
    location /plugins/ {
        root /path/to/nodebb/build/public/;
        try_files $uri @nodebb;
    }
    location / {
        proxy_pass http://io_nodes;
    }
}

So yeah, it seems I'm using nginx to serve static assets

(ninja'd by yariplus)

@pitaj Using Mongo (in Atlas), redis (same instance as NodeBB).

I haven't configured nginx to serve static assets (all images are on imgur), would this help a lot?

I've been exploring ways to autoscale my instances on the cloud, but still working through that.

@pitaj I'm running 8 cores, 8 GB RAM, High CPU intensive processors. (NodeBB spawns 8 process in cluster mode)

When I post something on my social media accounts, the traffic spikes up to 1,300 users and if I do it with several posts, it makes it impossible to get into the site (CPU goes to 100% and stops responding).

Awesomeness. Let's see how it goes

Hey guys,

currently I have my server in Google Cloud and I've been receiving several traffic spikes due to promotions we launch on social media.

I'm wondering, has anyone put their server on the cloud and is using autoscaling (by creating multiple instance groups).

If so, what's your configuration like? How can I scale NodeBB this way? (Those traffic spikes tend to kill my CPU fast).

Thanks.

I had my first server on a Dreamhost Dedicated Server.

Now I've moved it to Google Cloud.

How many users are you going to support?

Done Love it.