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Core Laravel Package
waterhole/core
Waterhole is an open-source Laravel package for building modern community forums. It provides a full discussion engine with posts, comments, reactions, moderation, member management, and a customizable interface that integrates cleanly into existing Laravel applications.
Waterhole is a modern, open-source community forum platform built on Laravel. It provides a solid foundation for discussion boards, Q&A communities, and social spaces, with a clean, fast interface and an extension system for customization.
- Discussions & posts with topics, tags, and rich content
- Reactions, mentions, and notifications for engaging conversations
- Moderation tools including flags, approvals, and user management
- Extensible architecture via addons, themes, and a REST API
- Search, localization, and responsive UI out of the box
Frequently asked questions about Core
- How do I install waterhole/core in a Laravel application?
- Install it with Composer, then publish its config and migrations, register the service provider, and mount the package routes. Route mounting is configurable, so the forum can live under a path prefix or on its own domain. Because the package ships migrations and a front-end build, expect more setup than a typical utility library.
- Which Laravel and PHP versions does Waterhole Core support?
- Waterhole Core targets Laravel on PHP 8.x, but the exact Laravel major and PHP minor constraints should be read from the package's composer.json for the release you intend to use. Check those constraints against your platform baseline before any spike work begins. Record the confirmed version matrix in an ADR once you commit, since the package is pre-1.0 or early-1.x and version constraints matter.
- Can Waterhole Core authenticate against my existing users table and roles?
- Yes in principle, but identity mapping is the real integration work rather than the Composer install. You need to map Waterhole's users, roles and permissions onto your existing model, and you should confirm with the maintainer that there is a supported contract for authenticating against a host application's user table. A common lower-risk first cut is running the forum on a sidecar subdomain that shares sessions and SSO with your main app. That isolates the front-end stack and leaves in-app embedding open for a later phase.
- What license does waterhole/core use?
- GitHub reports the license as NOASSERTION, meaning it cannot classify the license file, so treat licensing as a blocking gate rather than a footnote. Get legal review before spending engineering time, and ask the maintainer directly whether the license is OSI-approved and compatible with your distribution model. This is especially important if you plan to redistribute or offer the forum as part of a hosted product.
- Does Waterhole Core require Vue, Inertia.js and a Node build step?
- Yes. Waterhole ships its own HTTP layer plus an Inertia.js, Vue and Tailwind front end, so adopting it means inheriting a Node asset build pipeline. That is close to frictionless if your application already uses Inertia, but it is a visible seam if you run Blade, Livewire or a separate SPA. For a back-end-only team it is a genuine capability addition, so budget for it.
- Do I have to fork Waterhole Core to add custom community features?
- No, and you should avoid forking because it destroys the value of tracking an upstream package. Waterhole has a first-class extension API intended for building custom community features without modifying the core. Confirm during a spike that the extension points cover your specific requirements before you commit.
- Is Waterhole Core production ready, and should I pin the version?
- It is pre-1.0 or early-1.x, and releases at that stage rarely carry a backward compatibility promise. Always pin to a tagged release and never deploy from dev-main. With roughly 223 GitHub stars and no dependents, it behaves like vendor-published product code rather than community infrastructure, so plan for a bus factor of one and test upgrades deliberately.
- How do Waterhole Core migrations affect my existing database schema?
- The package's published migrations land in your own database, so verify they do not collide with existing tables before running them. Upgrade drift between package migrations and host schema changes is the classic failure mode of this pattern, so record the exact package version alongside your PHP, Laravel and Node versions. Run the migrations against a fresh schema on a throwaway branch during the spike, and exercise moderation and notifications end to end.
- Does Waterhole Core support multi-tenancy?
- Multi-tenancy is not documented in the available material, so treat it as an open question for the maintainer or vendor. If you need per-tenant isolation of discussions, groups and users, confirm support before designing around it. The sidecar subdomain approach is a practical way to contain the blast radius while you establish the answer.
- Is there a JSON or GraphQL API for mobile clients, or is Inertia the only interface?
- The package's interface is Inertia-driven, so if your requirement is a headless content API, composable UI components, or content blended into an existing SPA, Waterhole Core is a poor fit. Ask the maintainer whether a JSON or GraphQL surface exists or is planned for mobile clients. If you need a headless API first, evaluate lighter headless CMS or API-only alternatives instead of an application kernel.
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