Convoro — a modern open-source forum platform (Laravel, AI-native, runs on shared hosting)

[Convoro]

Hey FP! 👋


Long-time forum guy here. I spent years building extensions and themes for Flarum, and eventually hit the point every tinkerer hits: I wanted to build the platform itself. So I did. It's called Convoro, and I'd love for some of you to kick the tires.

Convoro is a modern, fully open-source forum platform built on Laravel — designed to run on plain shared hosting, with AI-powered answers, live translation, and ActivityPub federation built in.

💡 Why another forum platform?​

Because the choice right now is basically "old software that runs anywhere" or "modern software that needs a VPS and Docker." I wanted both halves: a genuinely modern experience (true WYSIWYG editing, PWA support, live everything) that still installs on the cheap PHP hosting most community admins actually use. No containers, no command line required — there's a one-click installer, or Composer if you prefer.

✨ What makes it different​

• Ask Convoro 🤖 — an AI Q&A system that answers questions by synthesizing your community's own threads, with citations back to the source posts. Bring your own model (Anthropic or any OpenAI-compatible API), so you control the cost.
• Live translation 🌍 — members can read and participate across languages in real time. Genuinely useful if your community isn't English-only.
• ActivityPub federation 🔗 — your forum can be followed from Mastodon, Lemmy, and the rest of the fediverse. Your content reaches people who've never visited your site.
• 35+ extension marketplace 🧩 — plus a live theme editor, so you can restyle the whole forum without touching code.
• Importers 📦 — including a Flarum importer, with more platforms supported if you're migrating an existing community.

🚀 Try it in two minutes​

There's a public demo you can click into right now — no signup hoops. And if you want to self-host:



bash
<span><span>composer</span><span> create-project convoro/convoro</span></span>

...or just use the one-click installer on shared hosting.

🙏 What I'm looking for​

Honest feedback, mostly. I'm a solo dev and this community knows forums better than almost anyone, so if you try the demo and something feels off — tell me. Feature requests, bug reports, "why did you do it this way" — all welcome. I hang out at our own community (running Convoro, naturally) and I'm quick to respond.


Links:

• 🌐 Website & demo: https://convoro.co
• 💬 Community: https://community.convoro.co
• 🐙 GitHub: fully open source, MIT licensed

 

[Deathstarr]

Saw this last week, Looks very promising! Keep it up.

 

[Convoro]

Saw this last week, Looks very promising! Keep it up.

Thanks. That's the plan.

 

[Ravenfreak]

Ooh finally there's a more modern forum software that can be installed on shared hosting. I know flarum exists but it's kind of mid IMO. I'll have to download this and install it and give it a go sometime!

 

[Smokey]

Looks really promising. 🙂

 

[Gizmo]

I've just requested a demo. This looks like a cool software.

 

[Convoro]

Ooh finally there's a more modern forum software that can be installed on shared hosting. I know flarum exists but it's kind of mid IMO. I'll have to download this and install it and give it a go sometime!

Looks really promising. 🙂

I've just requested a demo. This looks like a cool software.

Thanks everyone. I'm really trying to make Convoro the best it can be. Are there bugs sure but it's hard to find them all by yourself. So please feel free to find as many as possible.

 

[Deathstarr]

Thanks everyone. I'm really trying to make Convoro the best it can be. Are there bugs sure but it's hard to find them all by yourself. So please feel free to find as many as possible.

So far browsing the forum I have not found any. But I am still in the queue to be approved to post.

 

[Convoro]

So far browsing the forum I have not found any. But I am still in the queue to be approved to post.

You should be able to now. It's due to trust levels. I manually moved you to member from new.

 

[Revolved101]

Will this work x10hosting? like the free plan if I installed it?

 

[Convoro]

Will this work x10hosting? like the free plan if I installed it?

Yes — Convoro is built for exactly that. The install zip includes everything (no Composer, no SSH): upload via FTP, extract, visit /install, and the web installer sets up the database and admin account. Out of the box it uses file cache and no background services, so it runs on any shared host with PHP 8.3+ and MySQL — including $2–3 plans. One thing to check on x10hosting specifically: make sure your account can select PHP 8.3 or newer in the panel, since their free tier has historically only offered older versions. If it can, you're good.

Now if you want all the bells and whistles like realtime, queues, etc then you could easily run it on a small $5.00 VPS. I stress tested it with big board stats seeded to see how it would handle it.

 

[Convoro]

I know flarum exists

I still actively build extensions/themes for Flarum and support the ones I have already built. In fact this is another site I run for my WoW Guild that is using Flarum and a custom theme I made for it https://shatteredpact.com still trying to get some of my guild on there and away from Discord but it's there if they ever want to use it.