Product Advice: Avoid Discourse.org forum software Discourse
After some in depth evaluation, it is strongly recommended that those considering using Discourse.org's Discourse forum-like software, avoid the product for now. It is going to need some years to develop the maturity necessary for production use... I can now recommend people instead consider using NodeBB.
UPDATE: 20161202 - I can now recommend people instead consider using NodeBB, NOT Discourse. http://nodebb.org Much better community & developer environment, much better documentation, and far less of a kludge product than Discourse.
It is highly recommended to avoid using Discourse.org's forum like software. It has a lengthy chain of very fragile dependencies, inaccurate documentation, and a poor support community.
At this point I cannot recommend this product to anyone. I will consider reevaluating in 3 to 5 years, if they are still around and have shown any growth in maturity. For now, it is strongly recommend to use other more robust, reliable, better supported products. http://techtalkhawke.com/news/discord-with-discourse