Has anyone here ever used the forum software Discourse before? It looks like it's a pain to set up, but if you don't want to mess with setting it up yourself you could purchase a hosting package from their official website. You will need a cloud server, this software will not work in a shared hosting environment. You also can't have anything else set up on that server either, which can be a deal breaker if you want to incorporate a blog on the same server. It's a modern forum software too btw, these platforms have different layouts than the traditional software like MyBB, Xenforo, etc. You can read more about it here:
https://discourse.org/#
I am a member of ketogenicforums.com which uses Discourse, as well as a member of the official Discourse support forum. I thought about using it when I was contemplating starting up a 2nd community. But It's a bit plain and too minimal for me. It's another modern community software competing against the likes of Kajabi and Mighty Networks by copying a bit of what they do and tyring to blend it with the forum concept of old (kinda the direction where Invision is heading).
It's definitely different from what we traditionally are used to. Can't say I really had much enjoyment in it so far.
I'm not the biggest fan of the layout myself, if I'm being honest. Also recently I did notice they added a feature to the software where you can change a thread to a wiki post which is interesting and a good idea for a community that offers helpful information.