Stack Overflow is one of the most popular websites on the internet, but it's not hosted on WordPress. What if you want to create your questions and answers website without using WordPress? Well, luckily for you, there are a few different ways that you can do this. We will be discussing how to create your Stack Overflow like site with three different methods: question/answer databases, forum software, and CMS plugins.
Using A Database Like Mysql
The first method involves using a database like MySQL or PostgreSQL to store questions and answers in columns called "questions" and "answers." This may seem not easy at first glance because these are two separate tables that need data from each other constantly. However, there are a few PHP scripts that can handle this. One of the best is called "Stack Auto-Recover," It will automatically save changes every time a question or answer is edited, which prevents data loss. It also caches large amounts of information to all users to prevent overloading the server with expensive queries. This script even has optional user-friendly features like "handling duplicates," "showing the most recent question/answer," and filtering out questions by specific tags.
To make it more user-friendly, you can add a simple front end with things like WYSIWYG (what you see is what you get), text editing, and search features to help users find their questions faster. If this method interests you, we recommend that you read our tutorial on creating your Stack Overflow clone in PHP.
Using Forum Software
Forum software is another way of creating a site similar to Stack Overflow. Nothing stops you from making your forum software in any language, but we're going to focus on three very popular ones: Vanilla, Vanilla Foro, and Vanilla Fusion.
Vanilla is very lightweight, open-source forum software written in PHP. It's easy to set up and will allow you to easily create your question/answer database. Vanilla Foro is another lightweight forum built on the Yii framework, which makes it very extensible by enabling 3rd party extensions called "mods." Lastly, we have Vanilla Fusion, the same as Vanilla but have more features such as user groups, reputation systems, and file uploaders. All three of these forums are great choices depending on whether you want something light or heavyweight. You can check out our tutorial on installing and building a website with all three of these forum scripts.
Use MyWebForum.Com
It is free software, unlike the previous two. The benefit of using this software is customizable to suit your needs. mywebforum.com can build a community like a stack overflow and here is example: devhubby.com
Conclusion
All three software and methods are best to create a question-answer site like stack overflow.
