Apache Answer vs Forumbee
Apache Answer
answer.apache.org
Forumbee
forumbee.comSide by side
| Figure | Apache Answer | Forumbee |
|---|---|---|
| Price from | Free | $50/mo |
| Free plan | Yes | — |
| Free trial | — | Yes |
| Open source | Yes | — |
| Web | Yes | Yes |
| Windows | Yes | — |
| macOS | Yes | — |
| Linux | Yes | — |
| iOS | — | Yes |
| Android | — | Yes |
| API | Yes | Yes |
| Self-hosted | Yes | — |
| Plans published | 1 | 10 |
| Spec score · Customer Community Software | 9.1 (#1) | 9.1 (#2) |
| Integrations | Official plugins connect services including Google, DingTalk, Slack, WeCom, Redis, Algolia, Elasticsearch, Meilisearch, S3, and Tencent COS. | The pricing page names Slack, Google Analytics, Front, Zendesk and other integrations. |
| License | Apache Answer is released under the Apache License 2.0. | The terms retain Forumbee intellectual-property rights and grant customers service access, indicating proprietary software rather than an open-source license. |
| Purpose | Apache Answer is a Q&A platform for building communities between users and teams, including community forums, help centers, and knowledge management platforms. | Forumbee provides online communities and a knowledge base to engage users, deflect support tickets, and accelerate product adoption. |
| Rating on G2 | 4.3 out of 5 from 21 reviews | 4.6 out of 5 from 4 reviews. |
| Security controls | The docs describe login access controls for registration, login methods, and allowed email domains, plus content access controls for community members. | Forumbee states that it uses encryption in transit, access controls, monitoring and secure storage practices. |
| Support | Support is offered through community discussions, documentation, issues, mailing lists, and Discord, with no guarantee of an instant Discord response. | The Premium plan includes email support, while the Enterprise plan includes a dedicated success manager with an annual subscription. |
| What it does | Apache Answer is software for running community forums, help centers, or knowledge-management Q&A sites. | Forumbee is a cloud platform for branded communities combining forums, Q&A, knowledge-base content and idea collection. |
Plans
Forumbee
- Premium$250 a month
- Enterprise$750 a month
- Additional Admin Users$50 a month
- Additional Members$100 a month
- Professional Services$200 a month
- Personalized Training$300, paid once
- Assisted Account Setup Package$1,500, paid once
- Custom Theme Package$3,500, paid once
- Gamification Module$4,200 a year
- Custom PlanPriced on request
In their own words
Apache Answer
Apache Answer is a free, open-source Q&A platform for community forums, help centers, and knowledge management. Members can ask and answer questions, comment, vote, and earn reputation and badges. Tags, advanced search filters, and live suggestions help organize discussions and find relevant questions. Administrators can manage admin, moderator, and user roles, add users in bulk, and inspect edits in revision history. Themes and layouts can be customized, and plugins can add capabilities such as Google or generic OAuth2 login, Slack notifications, Redis caching, Algolia or Elasticsearch search, and S3 storage. Deployment options include Docker Compose, Docker, binaries, and aaPanel. The project lists binaries for Darwin ARM64, Linux AMD64 and ARM64, and Windows AMD64, and supports MySQL, PostgreSQL, and SQLite. Documentation describes controls for registration, login methods, allowed email domains, and member access to content. Apache Answer is licensed under Apache License, Version 2.0. Its security guarantee covers official repository plugins only, not third-party plugins.