Try it locally
Start a usable local instance, including Neo4j, the backend, the frontend, and
an automatically provisioned administrator:
docker compose up
Then open http://localhost:3000 and sign in with the
default local password multiforum-local-admin. No Auth0, cloud storage, maps,
email provider, or manual Cypher bootstrap is required. See the
local self-hosting quick-start before
customizing credentials or exposing any service beyond your machine.
About
Multiforum is a community platform that lets people create and manage topic-based forums with multiple content types:
- Discussions — upvotable posts with threaded comments
- Events — with calendar views and map-based discovery
- Wikis — collaborative docs with revision history
- Downloads — file sharing with custom filters per forum
Key differentiators:
- Cross-posting lets content be shared across multiple forums
- Map integration for location-based event discovery
- Personal libraries for organizing favorites and collections
- Granular moderation at both channel and server levels
Docs: https://docs.multiforum.net/
Website: https://www.multiforum.net/
Hosted Demo: https://www.topical.space/
How it fits together
Multiforum is split across two repositories:
The frontend talks to the backend exclusively through GraphQL.
Backend architecture: the data model, GraphQL schema, and resolver design
are documented in depth in the backend's
architecture overview
and the references linked from it. This README and the
frontend architecture doc cover the frontend
and the cross-tier auth flow; for anything about how data is stored, related,
and queried, start with the backend docs.
Technology choices — and why
These are the main technologies and, more importantly, why they fit a
cross-posting, deeply-interconnected community platform. If you have never used
them, the short version of each explains what problem it solves here.
Nuxt (server-side-rendered Vue)
Nuxt is a framework on top of Vue that adds
server-side rendering (SSR) — the first version of a page is built on the
server and sent as ready-to-read HTML, then "hydrated" into a live app in the
browser. That matters here for three reasons:
- Discoverability/SEO. Forum posts, events, and wikis are public content
people share and search for. SSR means crawlers and link previews see the
real content, not an empty shell waiting for JavaScript.
- Fast first paint. Users see content immediately instead of a spinner,
which matters on a content-heavy, link-driven site.
- Hydration-safe auth. SSR lets us render the correct logged-in/logged-out
UI on the server using lightweight auth-hint cookies, avoiding the "flash of
wrong UI" that plagues purely client-side auth. (See
Architecture and authentication.)
Nuxt's file-based routing also maps cleanly onto the many nested routes a forum
app needs (/forums/[forumId]/discussions/[discussionId], etc.).
Neo4j (graph database, in the backend)
Multiforum's data is fundamentally a graph, not a stack of independent
tables. A single discussion can be cross-posted into many forums; comments nest
arbitrarily deep; users connect to forums through roles; moderation issues link
content, actions, and suspensions together. In a relational database, "show me
every forum this download appears in" or "walk this comment thread" turns into a
pile of join tables and recursive queries.
Neo4j stores data as nodes and relationships directly, so
those traversals — follow the edges between connected things — are natural and
efficient. The shape of the database mirrors the shape of the product.
GraphQL + Apollo Client
Because the data is a graph, the API is too. GraphQL
lets the frontend ask for exactly the connected data a screen needs — a
discussion with its channels, author, and comment counts — in a single
request shaped like the result. Apollo Client
adds a normalized cache so repeated views of the same entity stay consistent and
fast without manual bookkeeping.
Auth0
Auth0 is a managed authentication provider. Rather than
building and securing our own login, password reset, and social/single-sign-on
flows, we delegate that to Auth0 and focus on the product. It pairs with the
SSR auth-hint strategy above to keep login state correct across server and
client.
Supporting libraries
- Pinia — small, typed store for UI state that several components share
(theme, modals, navigation) without prop-drilling.
- Tailwind CSS — utility-first styling with first-class dark-mode support,
which keeps the large component library visually consistent.
- Google Maps — powers location-based event discovery and clustering.
- Vitest + Vue Test Utils for unit tests and Playwright (with mocked
GraphQL) for end-to-end flows — fast feedback locally and in CI.
Developer docs
Start here:
Architecture:
Feature areas and plans:
All developer docs are indexed in docs/README.md.
Hosted documentation: docs.multiforum.net.
Screenshots
Status
This project is in active development.
