Products · Product
Discourse
Raised as a usability problem by 111 people on Hacker News over 14 years (2013–2026), in 76 threads.
No issue was raised by at least 3 people in 3 threads this year.
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Every issue, all time, most people first
Hijacked Ctrl+F browser search doesn't work as expectedUnreviewed
20132026- Browser find-in-page shortcut is hijacked to run site search instead2025-03-02
- Search box breaks after first result and infinite-scroll loading hides thread content from browser search2024-07-14
- Ctrl+F opens a custom in-app search bar instead of the browser's find2023-08-05
Infinite scroll makes users lose their place and get lostUnreviewed
20132026- Endless scrolling instead of pages, and relative timestamps instead of exact dates2024-07-13
- Hard to tell topic structure and find old replies without endless scrolling2023-08-24
- Endless scrolling feed makes discussions hard to navigate and feels obnoxious2023-07-30
Forum pages take about 7 seconds to load on every refreshUnreviewed
20132026- Topics take ages to load, showing only a throbber so content can't be read2024-05-31
- Pages take 8 seconds to load and make 80 requests2023-09-21
- Forum pages take about 7 seconds to load on every refresh2023-09-10
Thread view is disorienting as content shifts under a sticky headerUnreviewed
20132026- Thread view feels disorienting; scrolling content shifts and sticky header wastes screen space2022-08-27
- Threads are hard to read because of the layout, and pages load weirdly sometimes2021-11-09
- Categories are hard to tell apart from thread titles and the scrollbar becomes unusable in long threads2021-09-17
Going back resets scroll to top of long posts, losing placeUnreviewed
20132026- Scrollbar jumps and loses place as content loads; back button restores wrong position2021-08-27
- URL changes as you scroll, breaking Back and making it hard to return to the original post2017-08-09
- Going back resets scroll to top of long posts, losing reading place2013-02-11
Long threads hide replies behind scroll-to-load, forcing extra scrollingUnreviewed
20132026- Hidden pages of thread replies are hard to discover while scrolling2025-07-01
- Long reply threads hide replies behind a scroll-to-load behavior, forcing extra scrolling2021-08-27
- Thread layout is cluttered and confusing, with unclear reply grouping and inconsistent direct-reply markers2013-02-06
Setup requires Docker and heavy dependencies, hard to install nativelyUnreviewed
20132026- Install and update require huge disk space, slow compiles, and manual Docker image cleanup2019-04-01
- Hard to install: needs Docker, many packages, databases, and gems that fail with mysterious messages2017-01-30
- Setup requires Docker and heavy dependencies, making installation convoluted and hard to do natively2015-09-02
Unreviewed issues were grouped by machine: Claude Haiku labelled each comment as a usability complaint, named what it's about and summed up the problem in a line, and a small model grouped similar problems. Nobody has checked them by hand. Expect mistakes.
The newest 50 complaints
- Merges all categories, making the forum harder to navigate2026-09-09
- Search results show only five at a time, with no clear total count2026-04-17
- Loading screen is long, uninformative and gives no meaningful feedback2025-12-24
- Loading dots keep spinning for long waits on slow connections with no clear progress2025-12-23
- Hidden pages of thread replies are hard to discover while scrolling2025-07-01
- Installing it requires too much server setup, too complicated to adopt2025-03-05
- Browser find-in-page shortcut is hijacked to run site search instead2025-03-02
- Digest emails turn on by default after users stop visiting, forcing them to find and change the setting2024-12-27
- No good bulk spam moderation in the UI, making cleanup of hundreds of spam posts painful2024-10-09
- Search box breaks after first result and infinite-scroll loading hides thread content from browser search2024-07-14
- Endless scrolling instead of pages, and relative timestamps instead of exact dates2024-07-13
- Infinite scrolling and wasted space in the default layout2024-07-13
- Interface is slow and disorganized, with a narrow view of discussions2024-07-05
- Threads auto-lock, forcing filler posts to keep investigations going; notifications are noisy2024-07-04
- Without JavaScript you cannot log in or post a message2024-06-01
- Reimplements browser scrolling and overrides keybindings, so basic browser controls behave unexpectedly2024-05-31
- Topics take ages to load, showing only a throbber so content can't be read2024-05-31
- Discourse pages are hard to read, with oversized elements and too much whitespace2024-03-30
- Discourse is harder to use than other forums and mailing lists2024-03-22
- Long-pressing links opens them in the current tab instead of a new one2023-10-31
- Grotesquely over-complicated compared to mailing lists, hard to use for veterans2023-10-03
- Pages take 8 seconds to load and make 80 requests2023-09-21
- Discourse UI is terrible and feels unfriendly to community2023-09-21
- Forum pages take about 7 seconds to load on every refresh2023-09-10
- Hard to tell topic structure and find old replies without endless scrolling2023-08-24
- Ctrl+F opens a custom in-app search bar instead of the browser's find2023-08-05
- Endless scrolling feed makes discussions hard to navigate and feels obnoxious2023-07-30
- Thread pages need JavaScript and drop off-screen posts, breaking browser search2023-07-17
- Keyboard hijacked by non-standard input scheme, forcing users to relearn browser shortcuts2023-07-07
- Discourse keybindings hijack keys, breaking custom browser vim bindings with no way to disable them2023-07-07
- Too clean UI with weak visual hierarchy and unclear reply separation, causing cognitive load2023-06-16
- Ctrl+F search is hijacked and infinite loading makes pages hard to navigate2023-06-16
- Low information density and infinite scrolling make forums hard to use2023-06-16
- Everything is difficult to navigate and hard to tell apart2023-06-16
- UI is horrible and breaks for browsers it deems unsupported2023-06-16
- Large topics are hard to navigate and replies hard to follow2023-06-14
- Slow, unwieldy, nearly unusable with JavaScript disabled2023-06-10
- Ctrl+F is overridden to a site search, so the browser's find can't locate comments2023-06-09
- Navigation is terrible and finding stuff is hard2023-06-08
- Infinite scroll makes it hard to navigate long threads and return to checkpoints2023-04-20
- Discourse's built-in search is hard to use, so the commenter falls back to external search2023-03-08
- Initial page render feels very slow and infinite scroll fetches feel sluggish2022-08-27
- Most of the screen is empty or cluttered, low content density2022-08-27
- Thread view feels disorienting; scrolling content shifts and sticky header wastes screen space2022-08-27
- Metadata scattered above and below comments; huge margins, low information density2022-08-27
- Gets confused about what it is showing because of the scrolling timeline2022-08-27
- The interface feels clumsy to use on mobile devices2022-08-03
- Default setting auto-subscribes users to every forum post, flooding them with email summaries they didn't choose2022-08-03
- Infinite scroll floods users and offers no way to bookmark position or reach older threads2022-07-20
- Slow, and breaks native browser Find in Page2022-07-20