Discourse uses the Ember.js framework and is licensed under the GPLv2. It automatically detects mobile devices and is usable with touch screen displays, but is only optimised for screens bigger than 7″ at the moment. While the software is usable and an online demonstration is available, the developers caution that the software should not be used in production just yet. They also say that Discourse currently should only be used for starting new discussion communities, rather than migrating existing ones to it. Users who want to test the application can get the source code from GitHub.