# NodeBB Reviews 2026. Verified Reviews, Pros & Cons | Capterra > Is NodeBB the right Community solution for you? Explore 14 verified user reviews from people in industries like yours to make a confident choice. Source: https://www.capterra.com/p/161236/NodeBB/reviews --- NodeBB 4.7 (14) [View alternatives](https://www.capterra.com/p/161236/NodeBB/alternatives/) Provider data verified by our Software Research team, and reviews moderated by our Reviews Verification team. [Learn more](https://www.capterra.com/our-story/) * * * Last updated March 13th, 2026 # Reviews of NodeBB Ease of use 4.2 Customer Service 4.4 ## Showing most helpful reviews Showing 1-14 of 14 Reviews Sort by: Most Helpful Rating Company Size Reviewer's Role Length of Use Frequency of Use Vamsi K. Product Manager Financial Services Used the software for: 1-2 years ### "Neutral review" September 2, 2018 4.0 When we first started building our community, it was so great to be able to setup nodebb quickly without much developer help. Things are very well thought through regarding user onboarding. But as the community grew, many features started to make little sense for a 2k+ community. Things where I would like to see NodeBB put more focus on: - Emails - Design elements (Ex: upvote and downvote buttons are too small & hard to locate. Social share buttons , almost impossible to figure out where they are) - More support in terms of how to build good communities. You have a good software, but most people are unaware what are user communities, how to build & grow them, their advantages etc. Pros Plugins are the best feature. There is a plugin for almost every need & its easy to install & use it quickly Cons Design can be better, need to do more research on how communities evolve & design patterns to make the product inherently sticky. Email freqency settings are quite poor. Its either spammy or no email at all. Review Source VR Verified Reviewer Community Manager E-Learning Used the software for: 1-2 years ### "NodeBB Review" August 29, 2018 4.0 Overall, I would recommend NodeBB as a forum software to companies who would like to test the very idea of having a forum, or who are not ready to commit to large budgets and extended functionality. If you don't have any resources to write custom CSS, you could rely on one of their pre-made themes, and select from among 10+ skins. If you have design and coding resources, your opportunities will be much greater. NodeBB allows you to have a SSO option, which was a strong requirement for us, and their most basic plan is more than enough for us at the moment. They were also very kind to refund us for a few months at the beginning of our cycle when we were not using the forum, which left us with a great impression and established trust. Repeatedly we reached out to them with a request to develop certain functionality, for which they provided reasonable quotes. Pros We've been using NodeBB to run our forum for more than a year. Overall, it's a great \*value for money\* tool. The interface is relatively easy to use: after a bit of work of understanding where different settings are controlled, two people, one of whom was a trainee, could work it out alright. We like the look and feel it provides, which gives an impression of a website, rather than your average forum with pages and pages of content to scroll through and posts that look like a digitalised list of archives from the national library. The support team is responsive. Since they are a small company they take time to get back, but they almost always could help with the answer, or help to work out an alternative solution. They were one of the first forums to comply with GDPR, which was great news for us. Cons Since it's a new platform and a small team, there isn't a lot of learning materials about the software. Because plugins are open to the community to create, they would sometimes interfere with one another and break things. There is no curation to the list of recommended or updated plugins. And there is no quick way to understand if a task could be solved with a plugin or not (could be solved through documentation?). One needs to spend time with the community to work this out. Review Source DE Danny E. Software Engineer Computer Software Used the software for: 1-2 years ### "Great Open Source Forum, Poor Business Decision" August 31, 2018 4.0 Pros • Infinitely extendable with plugins and widgets • Open source, making it possible to find the source of any issue • The data sent to every page is easily accessible in JSON via API • Great support for forums hosted by NodeBB Cons • Plugins and widgets break on every upgrade. It's impossible to keep the system up to date without a lot of effort and developer resources • While the system is extendable, many things that should be built in are either second class add-ons or non existent. We had to build our own search widget, for example. • We have discovered numerous security issues and bugs that NodeBB should have been aware of themselves Review Source MV Mukesh V. Systems Admin Computer & Network Security Used the software for: 2+ years ### "Really, The best forum software I've used!" August 28, 2018 5.0 For my business providing an intuitive, flexible and adaptable UI to the users is key. I have found this software meets all my needs and the NodeBB team are experts in what they do, "They know their stuff" I found that they will make your idea become reality, providing you with feedback on a possible alternative ways of meeting your needs, I have found the NodeBB team participate with what you are trying to achieve, you don't feel like your on your own, they help you get there. Pros The forum software is easy on the eyes, some forum software looks too busy, with too many options and not intuitive but, NodeBB is clean and easy to use. The software is flexible and adaptable for your needs. The software has many options, I have adapted it to what I need, switching off features I do not need for my business. Cons The software team at NodeBB are keen to help with every issue you may encounter, so I have not really found any cons as such which would deter me from using the software. The software team are constantly updating the software, with additions and new features. I have had suggestions for what I have considered improvements and the NodeBB have listened, the features could take some time to be released, but the team have to consider feedback from many users and the best for improvements is released. I have used the NodeBB's customisation route many times, to get the features I need. Review Source VR Verified Reviewer Project Manager Computer Software Used the software for: 6-12 months ### "My experience with NodeBB" August 24, 2018 5.0 It's been a great experience! I will certainly use NodeBB again for other projects. Pros There are several pros with NodeBB, it as a sleek design, not like old forums from the 90's. It's fast, I mean really fast. Functionalities as onsite chat makes the difference. The way it's built... to scale, that's a big plus. Cons The installation process is not that friendly, but, that's on the installer. Another con would be the lack of features as more mature alternatives do have, but, it's understandable, NodeBB is rather young with a 1.10 version. Review Source VR Verified Reviewer Co-Founder and Developer Computer Software Used the software for: 6-12 months ### "Great! API needs documentation" August 24, 2018 5.0 Using it as a community for hyperPad. Deployed using a docker container. Lots of different themes and examples of how to use things. Built in package manager (though might be tricky when using docker) Pros Easy to install, good extensions. Writing extensions is easy. Cons The API has no documentation. Wanted to make some integrations, but couldn't figure out how to authenticate from a third party. Review Source VR Verified Reviewer Senior Software Engineer Telecommunications Used the software for: 6-12 months ### "Modern Forum, easy to use, with many features" August 24, 2018 5.0 Pros NodeBB is easy to setup, easy to personalize, and easy to administrate. There are several useful plugins that can be installed from the rich community. Cons Not all plugins have the same quality, meaning that compatibility of some of them can break when upgrading the forum. Review Source VR Verified Reviewer Manager, Data Analytics Financial Services Used the software for: 6-12 months ### "Good forum software" September 6, 2018 4.0 A very active development team that is looking to improve their software. The forum software itself is pretty straightforward to use. We have it hosted by them so I couldn't say what it's like on the back end, but everything works for us on the front end. Pros It's open source, very customizable. Their hosting plans are very competitive compared to similar competitors. The user interface is very modern. Their customer service is very quick to respond. Cons The UI isn't consistent in some areas, it's a bit of a tinkerer's software. I wouldn't put it as enterprise ready. Review Source Ramindu D. Software Technical Lead Computer Software Used the software for: Less than 6 months ### "The modern bulletin board software" January 3, 2020 5.0 NodeBB proved to be a cut above other outdated forum building tools in its speed and modern integrations. Pros NodeBB is a modern, fast forum building tool that brings a lot of current social features and integrations to the old-school bulletin board. IT provides lightening fast response times and is full open source so a breeze to clone from Github and set up. It provides multiple database integration options and quick integration with 3rd party services as well. Further integrations can be carried out through its comprehensive suite of RESTful web services. Cons While the provisioned services for NodeBB are quite useful and provide effective customer support, using a provisioned instance of NodeBB can be quite costly. Review Source VR Verified Reviewer Founder and CEO Financial Services Used the software for: Less than 6 months ### "NodeBB is the best option, without a doubt" August 24, 2018 5.0 It helps build a community. Pros It's modern. It has modern features. Competitor platforms don't come close to being able to offer as slick of a solution. I like how easy the plugins are to use. Cons I don't have many complaints. It's pretty awesome. Review Source AS Arie S. Founder + CEO Computer Software Used the software for: 1-2 years ### "Doing it the right way" August 24, 2018 5.0 I want my users to share knowledge about our software products and video post-production techniques amongst themselves. To that end, it works well. Pros That it is both open sourced and that it can be hosted by the developer. The forum is both supportable and portable because of that. It's got a very nice user interface and I think it's just easy to get around, and it's responsive. Every part of the UI is clean and modern, and they've built it to accept many third-party integrations. Cons I wish there were more themes for the forums. There are alot of switches to see which fonts / colors work. I do like how it's very open, but it's not immediately obvious that in some cases those third party integrations cost additional fees. Review Source Mikey G. VP Music Used the software for: I used a free trial ### "Forum for College Radio" August 30, 2018 5.0 Pros The backend was simple and super user friendly. Cons The peer to peer engagement could be stronger Review Source RS Russell S. CEO Consumer Goods Used the software for: 1-2 years ### "Best "Forum" software there is" August 24, 2018 5.0 Pros Modern and easy to use interface for customers. Leaves the old "forum" look behind and brings new age tech to discussion boards. Cons Backend could be easier to use. Make it look more the the frontend Review Source DG Danny G. CSR Retail Used the software for: 1-2 years ### "Great Forum Software" September 4, 2018 5.0 Pros Clean and easy to use front facing software that has modern aesthetics Cons Backend could use visual work. Would like it to resemble more of the front end. Review Source Similar Products Featured