Launching Flatbb tomorrow: a free, open-source forum you install by unzipping a folder

Hi everyone. Flatbb goes live on Product Hunt tomorrow (Sep 5), so here is a quick heads-up and the story behind it.

The problem: every forum I tried wanted Composer, Node or Docker before it showed a single topic, while the people I was building for had cheap shared hosting and an FTP client.

Flatbb is plain PHP with no framework, no Composer and no build step. Unzip a folder, open the URL, and a short installer asks for SQLite or MySQL and an admin account. Categories, tags, markdown, mentions, attachments, notifications, search, dark mode and a mobile layout are built in.

The part I like most: plugins are one folder with one manifest, and the whole plugin API is documented in a single text file. Paste it into Claude Code, Codex or Cursor, describe what you want, and upload the folder you get back. There is a marketplace with one-click installs.

Free, MIT licensed. Site: https://www.flatbb.com Source: https://github.com/nwnuyhs/flatbb

Launch page: https://www.producthunt.com/products/flatbb

If you have run a small community forum before, I would love to hear what you consider a must-have that is missing.