Top 5 Best Open Source Question and Answer Scripts

Published On: January 5th, 2015|Last Updated: July 23rd, 2023|Categories: Top 5 Best|Total Views: 3428|Daily Views: 1|

Question and answer script (Q&A) is a new type of discussion forum help users to point out or to find the specific answer. It allows users to build question and answer forum sites similar to popular websites like “Stack exchange” and “quora”. It also helps to increase web traffic by engaging users in discussion. Main difference between Q&A script and old forum is the “Voting system”. In the Q&A script, users can vote their “Best Answers”, which helps other users to find the answers easily. Following are the standalone and independent top 5 best open source question and answer scripts which can be able to run without any external web software like WordPress, blogger, etc..,

Question2Answer

Question2Answer is an open source program published on 4th February 2010 with license GPL V2+ and written in PHP language.

Pros:

  • Reliable.
  • Easy to install and setup.
  • Easy to integrate with existing WordPress site and users.
  • Plugins and themes available for more customization.

Cons:

  • Most of the plugins are not working as expected.
  • Limited support.

Best Open Source Question and Answer Scripts

OSQA

Developed using Python language and it is an absolute clone of “stack overflow” site with minimal features. AnswerHub is the powerful and full featured pro version of OSQA.

Pros:

  • Reliable – AnswerHub will keep OSQA script live and running since this is like a trial version of them.

Cons:

  • Difficult to install and setup.
  • No Add-ons and themes.
  • Limited support.

LampCMS

LampCMS was written in PHP and licensed under LGPL V3. Very powerful and contains almost all the features in popular sites like stack exchange and quora.

Pros:

  • Supports forum features like “Sticky threads” and “dot folders”.
  • Integrate with social networking sites.
  • Lot of other features.

Cons:

  • Not reliable.
  • Limited support.

Coordino

Coordino was written in PHP and used “cakePHP” framework. It works fast with very minimal feature.

Pros:

  • Users can post question and answer anonymously.

Cons:

  • Hard to customize.
  • Not reliable.
  • Limited support.

Qanus

Qanus is an open source Q&A script used for testing purpose.

Pros:

  • Easy customization.
  • Easy to test and develop.

Cons:

  • Not reliable. (Last updated on 29-Nov-2012)
  • Limited support.

Conclusion:

All the above mentioned Q&A scripts contain their own unique features and options. I will recommend using “OSQA” and “Question2Answer” script which was reliable currently and hope in future too.

You have any other recommendation? You know some other open source Q&A scripts? Let us know in the comments below.

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