Can I add Discourse as a forum feature to any website no matter its backend language?

Hello,
Please, let’s say I have a website with user authentication made with Elixir/Phoenix, and now want to add a forum to it (using a subdomain).

Is it possible for me to install discourse on my server and make it share the same users database as the main website?
So that users authenticated through the main website will be recognized on the forum too…

Or do you think it will be easier for me to build my own forum application as a child application of my website backend?

Thanks

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Yes that’s entirely possible!

You can even go the other way, and have Discourse manage your users and then use it as a SSO provider (what we do here with our giveaways).

I’m actually currently wondering what to do with the forum and our homepage… right now feel the quickest route is to let Discourse deal with user sign-ups because it has some cool features (such as Twitter/GH auth, log in with email, 2FA etc). Can always swap after wards…

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:slight_smile: Oh really nice. I will check the documentation and see how I can implement this too.

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That’s what I’ve done on one of my domains a long while back. I setup an OpenID Connect server and built a backend for it that uses the discourse forum as the master login database and it’s worked exceptionally well as an SSO. I only wish discourse could be an OIDC server by itself or at least if some plugin already existed so I didn’t have to build my own a while back. :sweat_smile:

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