@jac @Hari my thoughts around this are that with any platform - be that WordPress, Flarum, or NodeBB, there is an inevitable “lock in” - very much like Hotel California (“you can check out any time you like, but you can never leave”).
What I mean by this is that you are buying into an ecosystem that offers no easy or readily available path out. If you plan to stay for the long term and there is a clear progression path from that project meaning it’s a viable route, then great.
However, all of these platforms (except WordPress perhaps) have a way of ingesting data from other sources, but little to no way at all of taking that data somewhere else. This is nothing against any of those platforms, but the fundamental issue here is that whilst it’s probably easy to move into another product, it’s a different story altogether when you want to leave and take your data with you.
Most FOSS based platforms can realise this and make money out of migrations. I know for certain that wpForo does this, and I also know that it’s something that one of the developers at Flarum has been touting for some time.