Build a Forum Site with GitHub Discussions (No Backend or Database)

The useful part

Community forums are still one of the best ways to collect feedback, answer questions, and build discussions around a project. You need a server, a database, authentication, moderation tools, and ongoing maintenance before anyone can even create their first post. That's why I built git-forums â€"a SvelteKit-powered forum template that uses GitHub Discussions as the backend.

How it works

• The result is a fast, static website that can be deployed directly to GitHub Pages while GitHub handles discussions, replies, user accounts, reactions, and moderation.
• Reactions, user profiles, and moderation all continue to work through GitHub, so there isn't another system to maintain.
• Search is also handled through GitHub Discussions, making it easy for users to find existing conversations.
• No backend server No database Static site generation Deploys to GitHub Pages Built with Svelte 5, SvelteKit and Tailwind CSS v4 GitHub-flavoured Markdown support Configurable administrator badges Optional...
• If your project already lives on GitHub, you can turn its Discussions section into a fully featured forum website without setting up any additional infrastructure.

What to take from it

The problem is that most forum software comes with a lot of overhead. Discussion categories become forum sections, individual discussions become posts, and replies are displayed as threaded conversations. If your community is already on GitHub, it makes sense to use the tools that are already there.