Apache Answer vs ServiceNow Communities
Apache Answer
answer.apache.org
ServiceNow Communities
servicenow.comSide by side
| Figure | Apache Answer | ServiceNow Communities |
|---|---|---|
| Price from | Free | — |
| Free plan | Yes | — |
| Free trial | — | — |
| Open source | Yes | — |
| Web | Yes | Yes |
| Windows | Yes | — |
| macOS | Yes | — |
| Linux | Yes | — |
| API | Yes | Yes |
| Self-hosted | Yes | — |
| Plans published | 1 | 1 |
| Spec score · Customer Community Software | 9.1 (#1) | 6.9 (#33) |
| Founded | 2022 | 2004 |
| Purpose | Apache Answer is a Q&A platform for building communities between users and teams, including community forums, help centers, and knowledge management platforms. | Communities helps customers and employees get questions answered, connect with peers, and share expertise through self-service problem solving. |
| Search | Search supports filters based on tags, usernames, scores, and other criteria, with suggestions while users type. | Cross-portal search lets users search for solutions across self-service channels. |
| Support | Support is offered through community discussions, documentation, issues, mailing lists, and Discord, with no guarantee of an instant Discord response. | ServiceNow documentation directs users to contact Customer Service and Support for help. |
Plans
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.
ServiceNow Communities
ServiceNow Communities has no write-up on Specifiction yet; its figures are above.