HN isn't meant to solve the same problems as Discourse. Both attack on a common problem, which is making discussion meaningful, but the context is widely differ

HN isn't meant to solve the same problems as Discourse. Both attack on a common problem, which is making discussion meaningful, but the context is widely different. HN isn't meant to be used as a forum, it is a news discussion board, topics loose relevancy after just a couple days. Try adding lots of value to a topic by posting a reply after 48 hours, chances are, almost no one will see it, and even less people will reply to it. Forums don't work that way, you get discussions in forums which can last sometimes even years. And considering other forum options, Discourse has probably a killer feature, which is "Best of" a thread. Forums are horrible for documentation, after a meaningful discussion topics usually go dead, and if you want to read an old topic (but relevantt to you) with 500 pages (or even just 20), it is painful, you don't need to read every single comment, and Discourse's "Best of" will (should) fix that. That is powerful.