What it does
ElkArte is free, self-hosted forum software for communities that organize discussions into boards and member groups. It includes moderation, notifications and file attachments; hosting and maintenance are the operator's responsibility.
ElkArte's permission choices matter when members belong to several groups. Explicit Deny overrides a grant elsewhere; conditional denial allows another qualifying group to grant access. For example, explicitly denying the general member group will also block someone in a specialist group that would otherwise have permission.
Categories, board order and board restrictions have their own administration controls. Arrange the discussion areas alongside the membership rules, then check a member's combined groups when investigating missing access.
The application is free under a BSD license. To install it, prepare a database, download a release, upload its files to a writable web directory and run the browser installer. The public download is ElkArte 1.1.9. The repository's 2.0 development branch is separate, so use the release package for a stable installation.
Strengths
- Conditional denial allows another qualifying group to grant a permission
- Board organization and member permissions have separate controls
Watch out for
- An explicit denial overrides grants from other group memberships
Best for
- Community operators who need overlapping groups and board-specific permissions
Sources
- GitHub - elkarte/Elkarte at master · GitHub (Oct 26, 2026)
- Permissions · elkarte/Elkarte Wiki · GitHub (Oct 26, 2026)
- Boards · elkarte/Elkarte Wiki · GitHub (Oct 26, 2026)
- License of the ElkArte project code (Oct 26, 2026)
- Release ElkArte 1.1.9 · elkarte/Elkarte · GitHub (Oct 26, 2026)
- Commits · elkarte/Elkarte · GitHub (Oct 26, 2026)
- ElkArte, Free and Open Source Community Forum Software (Oct 27, 2026)
- ElkArte repository and installation overview (Oct 27, 2026)
- License of the ElkArte project code (Oct 27, 2026)