Question Can multiple installs of kunena work together?

Let's say I have two groups and one site. Each with different forum needs but want them to be able to talk together. But also want to be able to track users, recent posts, bdays, seperately.

Since joomla is what runs everything, and kunena is just a component couldn't two components of kunena work together in joomla?

Your situation is highly specialised and a little tricky. While it's possible to have "separate" areas using the same Kunena database - as you see in this site with the main forum and the playground - all the stats are aggregated in the one area.

No, I do not believe this is possible in the current situation. It's also not possible to install multiple instances of the Kunena component on the same Joomla site without making significant changes to the second installation (so that it uses a different set database tables, etc.). I would not recommend trying to do this unless you are a very experienced web developer.

However, I would imagine that this task could be accomplished if you would like to engage a developer to implement this special requirement ... but this service would not be free and, I would think, would cost money to do.