| General | Phorum | GroupServer | SMF | Vanilla |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Version |
5.2.9a
|
1.0β
|
2.0.6
|
2.6.4
|
| Release Date |
2008-10-13 (17 years ago)
|
2010 June 16
|
2013-10-22 (12 years ago)
|
2018-10-29 (7 years ago)
|
| Last Update here |
2008-10-16 (17 years ago)
|
2010-06-21 (16 years ago)
|
2013-10-25 (12 years ago)
|
2018-11-01 (7 years ago)
|
| Author |
Phorum Dev Team
|
OnlineGroups.Net
|
Simple Machines
|
Vanilla Forums Inc
|
| URL | ||||
| Free and Open Source |
Yes
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
| License |
The Phorum License (BSD)
|
GPL
|
BSD
|
GPL
|
| License cost |
0
|
$0
|
0
|
0
|
| Main View |
Both, can be configured
|
|||
| Thread-Type |
Threaded or Flat
|
Flat
|
Flat
|
Flat
|
| Setup | Phorum | GroupServer | SMF | Vanilla |
| Installation method |
wizard
|
manual
|
wizard
|
wizard
|
| Upgrade method |
wizard
|
manual
|
wizard
|
manual
|
| Hosting available |
No
|
Yes
|
No
|
Yes
|
| Technology | Phorum | GroupServer | SMF | Vanilla |
| Programming Language |
PHP
|
Python & Zope
|
PHP
|
PHP
|
| UTF-8 Support |
Yes
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
| Data Storage |
2
MySQL Database, PostgreSQL Database |
1
PostgreSQL Database |
3
MySQL Database, PostgreSQL Database, SQLite File Database |
1
MySQL Database |
| Other Storage |
Zope Object Database
|
|||
| Source Code Repo | ||||
| Issue Tracker | ||||
| Posts | Phorum | GroupServer | SMF | Vanilla |
| BBCode |
Optional
|
No
|
Yes
|
Plugin
|
| HTML |
Optional
|
No
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
| Emoticons |
Optional
|
No
|
Yes
|
Plugin
|
| Formatting Toolbar |
Optional
|
No
|
Yes
|
Plugin
|
| WYSIWYG Editor |
Plugin
|
No
|
Yes
|
Plugin
|
| Quoting |
Nested
|
None
|
Nested
|
Single
|
| Syntax Highlighting |
Plugin
|
No
|
Yes
|
Plugin
|
| Attachments |
Multiple files
|
Multiple files
|
Multiple files
|
Multiple files
|
| Tags |
Unknown
|
Unknown
|
Unknown
|
Yes
|
| Mark as solved |
A particular post can highlighted as accepted answer
|
|||
| Forums | Phorum | GroupServer | SMF | Vanilla |
| Categories |
Yes
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
| Subforums |
multiple levels
|
No
|
unlimited
|
unlimited
|
| Last Post |
Yes
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
| Redirect Forums |
No
|
No
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
| Trashcan Forum |
No
|
No
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
| Anti-Spam and Security | Phorum | GroupServer | SMF | Vanilla |
| CAPTCHA |
Optional
|
No
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
| Groups |
Multiple groups
|
Multiple groups
|
Multiple groups
|
Multiple groups
|
| Flood Control |
Yes
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
| ACLs |
Yes
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
| Blacklist |
Yes
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
| Warnings |
Plugin
|
No
|
Yes
|
Plugin
|
| Suspension |
Plugin
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
| Bans |
Yes
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
| IP-Block |
Yes
|
No
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
| Audit Logging |
Optional
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
| User Reports |
Yes
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
Plugin
|
| Other |
Aksimet Plugin
|
Spam Assasin is used for email spam control.
|
An Akismet mod is available
|
Community Curation & SPAM removal
|
| Notification | Phorum | GroupServer | SMF | Vanilla |
| RSS/ATOM |
Yes
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
|
| Instant Messaging |
0
|
Integrated Chat
|
||
| Bookmarks |
Yes
|
No
|
Plugin
|
Yes
|
| Community | Phorum | GroupServer | SMF | Vanilla |
| Avatars |
Plugin
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
| User Ranks |
Plugin
|
No
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
| Rating/Karma System |
Plugin
|
No
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
| Signatures |
Yes
|
No
|
Yes
|
Plugin
|
| Users Online List |
Plugin
|
No
|
Yes
|
Plugin
|
| Private Messaging |
Yes
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
| Custom profile fields |
Yes
|
No
|
Yes
|
Plugin
|
| Moderation | Phorum | GroupServer | SMF | Vanilla |
| Moderators |
global and forums
|
global and forums
|
global, forums and threads
|
global, forums and threads
|
| Move Threads |
Yes
|
Unknown
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
| Split Threads |
Yes
|
Unknown
|
Yes
|
Plugin
|
| Close Threads |
Yes
|
Unknown
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
| Shadow Topics |
Yes
|
Unknown
|
Yes
|
Plugin
|
| Sticky Threads |
Yes
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
| Important Threads |
Yes
|
Unknown
|
Plugin
|
Yes
|
| Search | Phorum | GroupServer | SMF | Vanilla |
| Full-text search |
Yes
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
| Author search |
Yes
|
Unknown
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
| Advanced search |
Yes
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
| Unread Topics |
Database tracked
|
Database tracked
|
Database tracked
|
|
| Customization | Phorum | GroupServer | SMF | Vanilla |
| Languages |
0
|
0
|
0
|
141
Afar, Abkhazian, Afrikaans, Amharic, Arabic, Assamese, Aymara, Azerbaijani, Bashkir, Byelorussian, Bulgarian, Bihari, Bislama, Bengali; Bangla, Tibetan, Breton, Catalan, Corsican, Czech, Welsh, Danish, German, Bhutani, Greek, English, Esperanto, Spanish, Estonian, Basque, Persian, Finnish, Fiji, Faroese, French, Frisian, Irish, Scots Gaelic, Galician, Guarani, Gujarati, Hausa, Hebrew, Hindi, Croatian, Hungarian, Armenian, Interlingua, Indonesian, Interlingue, Inupiak, Icelandic, Italian, Inuktitut, Japanese, Javanese, Georgian, Kazakh, Greenlandic, Cambodian, Kannada, Korean, Kashmiri, Kurdish, Kirghiz, Latin, Lingala, Laothian, Lithuanian, Latvian, Lettish, Malagasy, Maori, Macedonian, Malayalam, Mongolian, Moldavian, Marathi, Malay, Maltese, Burmese, Nauru, Nepali, Dutch, Norwegian, Occitan, Oromo, Oriya, Punjabi, Polish, Pashto, Pushto, Portuguese, Brazilian Portuguese, Quechua, Rhaeto-Romance, Kirundi, Romanian, Russian, Kinyarwanda, Sanskrit, Sindhi, Sangho, Serbo-Croatian, Sinhalese, Slovak, Slovenian, Samoan, Shona, Somali, Albanian, Serbian, Siswati, Sesotho, Sundanese, Swedish, Swahili, Tamil, Telugu, Tajik, Thai, Tigrinya, Turkmen, Tagalog, Setswana, Tonga, Turkish, Tsonga, Tatar, Twi, Uighur, Ukrainian, Urdu, Uzbek, Vietnamese, Volapuk, Wolof, Xhosa, Yiddish, Yoruba, Zhuang, Chinese, Chinese Traditional, Zulu |
| Mobile View |
Unknown
|
Unknown
|
Unknown
|
Yes
|
| Templates |
global and forum specific
|
global and forum specific
|
global and forum specific
|
|
| Custom BBCodes |
Plugin
|
Unknown
|
Plugin
|
Plugin
|
| Skin-Editor |
No
|
Unknown
|
Yes
|
Plugin
|
| Smiley Packs |
Plugin
|
Unknown
|
Yes
|
Plugin
|
| Plugins |
Yes
|
No
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
| Special Features | Phorum | GroupServer | SMF | Vanilla |
| Statistics |
Plugin
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
| Polls |
Plugin
|
Unknown
|
Yes
|
Plugin
|
| Calendar |
No
|
Unknown
|
Yes
|
Plugin
|
| Friendly URLs |
Plugin
|
Unknown
|
Plugin
|
Yes
|
| Data Management | Phorum | GroupServer | SMF | Vanilla |
| Available Importers |
All platforms use: https://open.vanillaforums.com/addon/porter-core
|
|||
| Pruning |
Yes
|
Unknown
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
| Archiving |
No
|
Unknown
|
Plugin
|
Yes
|
| Export Formats |
XML, mbox
|
WAP(2), IMode
|
Proprietary or MySQLDump
|
|
| Export private messages |
No
|
Yes
|
Plugin
|
Yes
|
| Lo-Fi View |
Optional
|
Unknown
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
| remove Phorum | remove GroupServer | remove SMF | remove Vanilla |