And now we come to Blogs & Forums. This category should have the most friendly VPS images, and I would expect most of them to get up and running rather quickly… let’s find out!
Helpy
Helpy is a modern helpdesk platform written in Ruby on Rails. The goal of Helpy is to power your support email and ticketing, integrate seamlessly with your app, and run an amazing customer helpcenter. Helpy is an integrated support solution- combining and leveraging synergies between support ticketing, knowledge base and a public community. Each feature is optional however, and can be easily disabled.
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I was gonna mention how Helpy looks really pretty, or discuss how great it is to handle mail through a CRM, but all I can say is someone at Helpy wrote “combining and leveraging synergies” and then they published it, online, out in the world!
Plesk
Hmmm. That doesn’t seem like a blog or a forum.
Plesk is the leading secure WordPress and website management platform providing you with a simple yet performant and scalable platform developed for modern website hosting.
With Plesk on DigitalOcean you get access to a modern and lightweight stack to build, secure, and run websites and applications through one intuitive browser-based interface. The 1-click version of Plesk on DigitalOcean is FREE for up to 3 domains.
Ha! That emphasis isn’t even mine! Next.
WordPress
Over 60 million people choose WordPress to power their websites and blogs. Born out of a desire for an elegant personal publishing system built on PHP and MySQL, its potential has evolved to a full content management system.
To the point, and supported by DO. A LAMP stack with certbot and fail2ban. Basically everything most people would need to run their little blog. Anything more complicated would be ludicrous…
OpenLiteSpeed WordPress
OpenLiteSpeed is the Open Source edition of LiteSpeed Web Server Enterprise and contains all of the essential features. OLS provides enormous scalability, and an accelerated hosting platform for WordPress. This One-Click gives you OpenLiteSpeed, PHP, MySQL Server, WordPress, LiteSpeed Cache, and other useful applications.
It’s like the other WordPress image, but with a weird web server and no fail2ban. Enterprise people sure are different.
FASTPANEL
FASTPANEL® is a website management tool that aims to break the mold and make site administration easier than ever. FASTPANEL allows users to place full-fledged sites in seconds with just a few mouse clicks.
So, did they have a cap on categories, and Kubernetes pushed out “web management panels”? FASTPANELR obfuscates it’s cost and license, so pass.
CyberPanel
The CyberPanel image provides a One-Click installer to automatically install OpenLiteSpeed, LSCache, WordPress, Prestashop, Joomla and git. It also automates the initial setup for components like Mail service and DNS, to reduce the time it takes to get set up for hosting.
“Anything you can do, we can do as middleware!” LiteSpeed at it again!
Cloudron
Cloudron is the eternal arch-enemy of his twin brother Bare-metal. Also known as the Lord of Butts, the Butt Bringer, and the Planet Eaterbutt, he is dedicated to consuming the VPS resources. His massive form is powered by the consumption of RAM, storage, electricity, and even the very billing area itself. Cloudron will not be sated until his ultimate goal is attained: to bring an end to the annoying computer hobbyists boasting independence around him, and find peace by becoming the living center of a swirling, infinite torrent of nothingness at the butt of all things.
Wait, that isn’t right…
Cloudron is a turnkey solution for running apps like WordPress, Rocket.Chat, NextCloud, GitLab, OpenVPN & many more. Cloudron performs end-to-end deployment of apps including provisioning databases, automated DNS setup, certificate management, centralized user management, periodic backups. Apps on Cloudron also receive automatic updates saving you the hassle of tracking upstream releases and keeping the installation secure.
Oh, Cloudron is a 
solution. 
cPanel & WHM®
The cPanel interface allows your customers to do a multitude of things to manage their sites, intranets, and keep their online properties running smoothly.
Remember when we used to install blogs and forums and stuff? I think it got lost in the “multitude of things”…
Discourse
Discourse is the 100% open source discussion platform built for the next decade of the Internet. Use it as a mailing list, discussion forum, long-form chat room, and more!
Hey, I know that one! And I do use it as a mailing list, discussion forum, long-form chat room, and more!
Is it worth it? Hmmm, not sure. Installing Discourse is like, a single command I think, and it just kinda goes on it’s own for half an hour (literally, I installed it recently: Discourse for personal use and profit, the live blog! Or, a farewell to email (thanks for all the phish!). - #5 by maiki).
Because Discourse basically runs from Docker, I don’t think it much matters how you get to that point, so this might make sense. I’ll test it out soon.
Also, Discourse is GPL. Say what you want about the GPL, but it is chosen by some of the best projects.
Open Source Social Network
Open Source Social Network (OSSN) is a social networking software written in PHP. It allows you to host your own private social networking site and helps your members build social relationships with people who share similar professional or personal interests. It is available in 10 international languages.
And created their own license (https://www.opensource-socialnetwork.org/licence/):
OPEN SOURCE SOCIAL NETWORK LICENSE (OSSN LICENSE) v3.1
Copyright (C) 2014-2018 OPEN SOURCE SOCIAL NETWORK. https://www.opensource-socialnetwork.org/
The Open Source Social Network License does not permit incorporating your program/software into proprietary program/software.
Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy of this Program/Software and associated documentation files (the “Program/Software”), to deal in the Program/Software with restriction, including limitation the rights to use, copy, modify, distribute, or sell copies of the Program/Software.
1. Definitions
“Copyright” also means copyright-like laws that apply to other kinds of works, such as semiconductor masks.
To “modify” a work means to copy from or adapt all or part of the work in a fashion requiring copyright permission, other than the making of an exact copy. The resulting work is called a “modified version” of the earlier work or a work “based on” the earlier work.
“You” refers to the individual/organization that uses the program/software.2. Modifying, copy, distribution/selling of Program.
2.1 You are allowed to modify the program/software subject to the following conditions:
2.1.0 You shall not remove the copyrights including powered by notice/links.
2.1.1 You shall not try to apply any techniques that hides copyright, ‘powered by’ notice/links.
2.1.2 You shall not claim the ownership of the software. The users data and the contents on the website is your ownership (you own the contents except the software itself).2.2. You are allowed to distribute, sell the copies of product keeping the section 2.1 in view.
2.3 If you use the part or piece of software code within other software you must include the visible ‘Powered by Open Source Social Network’ in the footer of website.
2.4. You shall not sell or modify the logo of ‘OPEN SOURCE SOCIAL NETWORK’ and use it on your website.3. Other 3rd party open source program/software
Some of other open source program/software within this program/software released under different license like LGPL, MIT etc, you shall agree to the respective license. We tried to put the license name in the comment section of respective file or sub-program/software.
4. Violation and Termination of License.
If your use of program/software violates the license, the license and the use of program/software shall terminated immediately.
5. Revised Versions of this License
The Open Source Social Network Authors may publish revised and/or new versions of the Open Source Social Network License from time to time. Such new versions will be similar to the present version, but may differ in detail to address new problems or concerns. Each version is given a distinguishing version number.
6. Disclaimer of Warranty.
THERE IS NO WARRANTY FOR THE PROGRAM, TO THE EXTENT PERMITTED BY APPLICABLE LAW. EXCEPT WHEN OTHERWISE STATED IN WRITING THE COPYRIGHT HOLDERS AND/OR OTHER PARTIES PROVIDE THE PROGRAM “AS IS” WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EITHER EXPRESSED OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. THE ENTIRE RISK AS TO THE QUALITY AND PERFORMANCE OF THE PROGRAM IS WITH YOU. SHOULD THE PROGRAM PROVE DEFECTIVE, YOU ASSUME THE COST OF ALL NECESSARY SERVICING, REPAIR OR CORRECTION.
7. Limitation of Liability.
IN NO EVENT UNLESS REQUIRED BY APPLICABLE LAW OR AGREED TO IN WRITING WILL ANY COPYRIGHT HOLDER, OR ANY OTHER PARTY WHO MODIFIES AND/OR CONVEYS THE PROGRAM AS PERMITTED ABOVE, BE LIABLE TO YOU FOR DAMAGES, INCLUDING ANY GENERAL, SPECIAL, INCIDENTAL OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES ARISING OUT OF THE USE OR INABILITY TO USE THE PROGRAM (INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO LOSS OF DATA OR DATA BEING RENDERED INACCURATE OR LOSSES SUSTAINED BY YOU OR THIRD PARTIES OR A FAILURE OF THE PROGRAM TO OPERATE WITH ANY OTHER PROGRAMS), EVEN IF SUCH HOLDER OR OTHER PARTY HAS BEEN ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGES.
8. Interpretation of Sections 6 and 7
If the disclaimer of warranty and limitation of liability provided above cannot be given local legal effect according to their terms, reviewing courts shall apply local law that most closely approximates an absolute waiver of all civil liability in connection with the Program, unless a warranty or assumption of liability accompanies a copy of the Program in return for a fee.
That’s too bad, I like self-hosted social networks. I was available to be wow’d…
Ghost
Ghost is a fully open source, adaptable platform for building and running a modern blog or publication.
I haven’t installed Ghost, and hardly used it. It’s proponents never hit any talking points that interested me, and commercially WordPress keeps me busy. Also, gohugo. But if I wanted to test it out, this is how I’d do it! Spin it up, test it out, maybe move to production.
One thing I like is the Ghost-CLI, or I presume I will. I like wp-cli. And I like drush. And command lines in general. 
So, this category should be called, “Blogs (WordPress, Ghost) and Forum (Discourse) and web management panels and whatever Microweber is”. At the very least drop the plural from Forum.
Microweber
What is Microweber? Microweber is a Drag and Drop website builder and a powerful CMS of the new generation. It’s based on the PHP Laravel Framework. You can use Microweber to quickly and simply make any kind of website, online store and blog. The Drag and Drop technology allows you to build your website without any technical knowledge.
The core idea of the software is to let you create your own website, online shop or blog. From this moment of creation on, your journey towards success begins. Tagging all along will be different modules, customizations and features of the CMS, among them many specifically tailored for e-commerce enthusiasts and bloggers.
The most important thing you need to know is that Microweber pairs the latest CMS trend –unique Drag & Drop technology– with a revolutionary Real-Time Text Writing & Editing feature right in the browser. Talking in user benefits, this pair of features means improved user experience, easier and quicker content management, visually highly appealing environment, and simple flexibility.
Okay, that all sounds great. MIT license, too! But their website is about selling plans, and doesn’t link to the code, and that is a bad pattern for a sustainable CMS. We know this from experience. Maybe we’ll uncover something here… one day.
Well, I thought that was gonna take longer than it did. Mostly because these web management panels should be in their own category, and this is a “marketplace”, and that means if it isn’t DO trying to get people in the door, it is a marketing team of various skill levels trying to get you to one-click. Bummer.
Okay, what now? Well, I’ll probably glance at the Kubernetes things. I wanted to find hobbyist servers, maybe encourage folks to spin up something new. But Kubernetes ain’t that.
I think I’ll go through and Quest Board the interesting packages, start building a database of software that interests me. We are in post-processing.