Meta quietly launches Forum app, turning Facebook Groups into a Reddit rival

Meta Launches Forum, a New Reddit-Like App for Facebook Groups

Forum lets you see 'what real people are saying, not just what's trending,' Meta says. Meta has quietly launched a new app for Facebook Groups called Forum. The app didn't get a formal launch but was spotted on the iOS App Store by analyst Matt Navarra. The App Store description suggests Meta is building it as a rival to Reddit. Forum is "a dedicated space built for deeper discussions, real answers, and the communities you care about," the company says. Once you log in to the app using your Facebook account, you'll be greeted with a feed of updates from Groups you've already joined. You can also search for and join new groups based on your interests. What makes the app a bit more Reddit-like is that you can publish comments or posts under a nickname. Note that everything you share on Forum will also be visible to Group members via Facebook. There's also an AI-powered Ask tab for quick answers from groups across Forum. It is the second option from the right on the bottom navigation bar, and you can tap it to seek the AI's opinions and recommendations. Similar to querying on chatbot apps, you can drop a question into Ask, and it will pull up curated responses based on comments made by "real people" across Facebook Groups. It will also let you join those groups. Group Admins get an additional AI feature: an AI assistant. It can help them "manage groups, moderate content, and keep their groups healthy," Meta says. For now, the app and its features may not be available in all regions. "We test lots of new products publicly to see what people find interesting and useful to their experiences across our apps," a company spokesperson tells Navarra. The analyst has also shared videos and screenshots of the app interface on X and Threads.

Facebook's got a new, secret app called Forum

So, like Quora/Reddit, only on Facebook? Credit: Forum/Facebook/Apple App Store Meta's got a brand new app, but the company isn't advertising it anywhere yet. The app is called Forum, and it's been spotted by Geekout Newsletter's Matt Navara (via Engadget). It's freely available to iPhone users, though it's not available in all markets yet. Per the app's official description, it's a "dedicated space built for deeper discussions, real answers and the communities you care about." In practice, it lies somewhere between Reddit and Quora, enabling users to ask questions and get related answers from folks on Facebook Groups. By default, it'll show you content from Facebook Groups based on your (previously selected) interests. On the admin side, Facebook says the app is build for people who run groups, giving them a new admin AI assistant to help manage their groups and moderate content. Facebook emphasises that this is about getting answers from "real people." Forum requires a Facebook account; the driving idea behind the app might be to leverage Facebook's vast community of users to provide answers, instead of getting AI-generated slop. Still, an AI assistant will fetch the answers when you ask a question on Forum. A Meta spokesperson told Engadget the app is still undergoing testing. "We test lots of new products publicly to see what people find interesting and useful to their experiences across our apps," the spokesperson said.

Meta built a Reddit rival out of Facebook Groups

Forum turns group posts into a standalone app built around questions, AI answers, and niche communities Meta has quietly launched Forum, a Facebook Groups app that pulls community answers into a cleaner standalone space. The app gives Groups a new home for discussions, recommendations, and replies that would normally sit inside Facebook. For anyone who has searched through years of group posts for a useful answer, Forum looks like Meta's attempt to make that knowledge easier to reach without sending people back into the main feed. Recommended Videos Forum is listed on the App Store as a free iPhone app from Meta. It's still unclear how widely the test is available beyond the U.S. listing and iPhone users. Why does Forum feel familiar Forum puts questions and community advice at the center of the experience. Users can search across group conversations, while posts and recommendations are organized around shared interests instead of a broader social feed. The Reddit comparison comes from that structure. Forum is built around the kind of niche discussions, recommendations, and back-and-forth answers that already make Facebook Groups valuable, only now they sit inside a dedicated product. AI is a major part of that setup. There's an Ask beta that can pull answers from group conversations, summarize interests, surface relevant discussions, and help admins manage communities. The tradeoff is trust, as Facebook Groups work because people bring lived experience, personal context, and niche expertise. If AI turns that into bland summaries, Forum loses the human texture it's trying to organize. How far from Facebook is this Forum still depends on the parent network. The App Store listing identifies it as a Facebook app. Users sign in with an existing Facebook account, with profile details and activity carrying over. That connection gives Meta a big head start. Forum can draw from years of group conversations, local recommendations, hobby communities, and support-style posts rather than waiting for users to rebuild those spaces from scratch. It also limits the reset. Anyone hoping for a clean break from Facebook's identity system and social graph probably won't find it here. What happens if the test sticks Forum is still early. Meta is calling it a public test, and the App Store listing notes that some features may vary by country or region. The bigger signal is where Meta sees value. Groups already hold searchable advice, local tips, hobby knowledge, and support threads, and Forum gives that material a dedicated product with AI built into discovery. For now, treat Forum as an experiment rather than a full Reddit replacement. The next things to watch are Android availability, a wider rollout, and whether Meta can make AI speed up group search without muting the people behind the answers.

Meta may be building its own Reddit rival with new Forum app: Here is what we know

Users will still need a Facebook account, and all activity on Forum will remain synced with the main Facebook app. After Instants, Meta is now planning to introduce a standalone app called Forum, a platform which focuses entirely on Facebook Groups and community conversations. The app appeared on Apple's App Store without any formal announcements from the company and seems to position itself as discussion-driven space where users can discover information and interact with communities in a way that resembles platforms like Reddit. Unlike the regular Facebook feed that mixes posts from friends, Pages, recommended content and groups, Forum is reportedly made around conversations happening inside Groups. The app reportedly allows users to browse discussions from their joined communities in a separate dedicated feed, while also surfacing posts from other Groups based on interests selected during onboarding. However, Forum is still closely tied to the Facebook ecosystem. The users need a Facebook account to access the app and their existing profile, activity and group memberships automatically carry over after login. While the platform supports anonymised usernames for public interactions, Group administrators can still view the real identity behind those accounts. Also read: ChatGPT can now make your presentation using text prompts: Here is how The app is said to offer some AI powered tools called Ask which may help users search across multiple Groups at once to find answers without manually browsing each community individually. Meta is also reportedly testing an AI assistant for moderators that can help manage conversations and administrative tasks inside Groups. Anything posted through Forum will continue syncing with Facebook itself, allowing users to switch between the two apps without losing conversations or discussions. This is not the first time Meta has experimented with a Groups-focused platform. The company had previously launched a standalone Facebook Groups app years ago before discontinuing it in 2017. The reports also suggest that Meta has confirmed the app is currently in the testing phase adding that the company frequently experiments with new products publicly.