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

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)

Awesomeness. Let's see how it goes

@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!

/* globals socket, app, utils */


$(document).ready(function() {
	// start variable to grab the last JSON data
	var lastData;
	var topicList;
	var catList = [];
	var catData = [];
	$(window).on('composer:autocomplete:init', function(ev, data) {
		loadCatNames();
		var topicSearch = {
			match: /\&t([^\s\n]*)?$/,
			search: function (term, callback) {
				//var topicList;
				$.getJSON("/api/search/?term=" + term + "&in=titles&sortBy=topic.title&sortDirection=&showAs=posts", function (data) {
					if (data) {
						topicList = data.posts.map(function(post) {
				     		return post.topic.title;
				     	});
				     	// save lastData to be used in replacing function
				     	lastData = data.posts;
				     	callback(topicList);
					}
				});
			},
			index: 1,
			replace: function (mention, ev) {
				if (lastData.length && lastData[0].topic) {
					return '[' + mention + '](/topic/' + lastData[0].topic.slug + ') '
				}
				else {
					return;
				}
			},
			cache: true
		};
		var categorySearch = {
			match: /\&c([^\s\n]*)?$/,
			search: function (term, callback) {
				//var topicList;
				if (!term) {
					var categories = catList.filter(function(value, index, array) {
						return array.indexOf(value) === index;
					});
					callback(categories);
				} else {
					callback($.map(catList, function (word) {
		                return word.indexOf(term) === 0 ? word : null;
		            }));
				}
			},
			index: 1,
			replace: function (mention, ev) {
				function search(nameKey, myArray){
				    for (var i=0; i < myArray.length; i++) {
				        if (myArray[i].name === nameKey) {
				            return myArray[i];
				        }
				    }
				}
				var resultObject = search(mention, catData);
				return '[' + resultObject.name + '](/category/' + resultObject.cid + ') '
			},
			cache: true
		};
		data.strategies.push(topicSearch);
		data.strategies.push(categorySearch);
	});

	$(window).on('action:composer.loaded', function(e, data) {
		var composer = $('#cmp-uuid-' + data.post_uuid + ' .write');
		composer.attr('data-mentions', '1');
	});

	function loadCatNames() {
		$.getJSON("/api/categories", function (data) {
			if (data) {
				var childrenCids = [];
				var allCategories = [];
				var category;
				function eachRecursive(obj)
				{
				    for (var k in obj)
				    {
				        if (typeof obj[k] == "object" && obj[k] !== null) {
			        		catList.push(obj[k].name);
			        		category = {
			        			name: obj[k].name,
			        			cid: obj[k].cid
			        		}
			        		catData.push(category)
			        	    eachRecursive(obj[k].children);
				        }
				        else
				        {
				        	return;
				        }
				    }
				}
				eachRecursive(data.categories);
			}
		});
	}
}); 

Here's the code I've made. You can even try it in this forum using the console.
Use "&t" and type the topic title. Use "&c" and type the forum category.

EDIT
Replaced /topics/ with /topic/