Moving my community from Circle.so to Discourse
After running the Engineering Book Club community on Circle.so for more than two years, I recently decided to migrate our system to Discourse. This decision was not taken lightly, and in this article I want to share my main reasons for making the switch—and also provide a resource for anyone who might want to follow a similar path.
Why leave Circle for Discourse?
1. A more familiar environment for discussions
Discourse provides a classic, tried-and-tested forum design that is familiar to anyone who has participated in online communities over the past two decades. Many of my community members found the Circle.so environment to be more of a social media feed, which made it harder to find sustained, threaded discussions. Discourse excels at long-term, structured conversations and knowledge-sharing.
2. A true forum beats the "social media" approach
Circle.so borrows interaction patterns from social networks—timelines, posts, comments, and notifications—which can be engaging, but doesn't always serve communities built around deep discussion or collaborative problem-solving. Forums like Discourse are inherently focused on topics and threads, which makes it easier for users to search for information, revisit old conversations, and organize knowledge.
3. Open source and developer-friendly
As a developer, I appreciate the flexibility that comes with open source software. Discourse is not only open source, but it also supports custom plugins and integrations, letting me tailor the platform to my community's specific needs. With Circle, I felt limited by the more closed ecosystem and less ability to extend the software directly.
Migration Script: Circle.so to Discourse
If you are interested in moving your own community from Circle.so to Discourse, you may find my migration script helpful. You can find the script and instructions here: 👉 https://github.com/miguelbemartin/circle-to-discourse
Feel free to fork the repository or open issues if you have feedback!
If you're considering such a migration or have questions, let me know. I'm happy to share more details about the process and help others wherever I can.
