| General | Vanilla | Invision Power Board | GroupServer | Phorum |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Version |
2.6.4
|
3.2.3
|
1.0β
|
5.2.9a
|
| Release Date |
2018-10-29 (7 years ago)
|
2011-10-18 (14 years ago)
|
2010 June 16
|
2008-10-13 (17 years ago)
|
| Last Update here |
2018-11-01 (7 years ago)
|
2012-02-07 (14 years ago)
|
2010-06-21 (15 years ago)
|
2008-10-16 (17 years ago)
|
| Author |
Vanilla Forums Inc
|
Invision Power Services
|
OnlineGroups.Net
|
Phorum Dev Team
|
| URL | ||||
| Free and Open Source |
Yes
|
No
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
| License |
GPL
|
Commercial
|
GPL
|
The Phorum License (BSD)
|
| License cost |
0
|
License from $175 / Hosted from $5 per month
|
$0
|
0
|
| Main View |
Both, can be configured
|
|||
| Thread-Type |
Flat
|
Flat
|
Flat
|
Threaded or Flat
|
| Setup | Vanilla | Invision Power Board | GroupServer | Phorum |
| Installation method |
wizard
|
wizard
|
manual
|
wizard
|
| Upgrade method |
manual
|
wizard
|
manual
|
wizard
|
| Hosting available |
Yes
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
No
|
| Technology | Vanilla | Invision Power Board | GroupServer | Phorum |
| Programming Language |
PHP
|
PHP 5.2+
|
Python & Zope
|
PHP
|
| UTF-8 Support |
Yes
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
| Data Storage |
1
MySQL Database |
1
MySQL Database |
1
PostgreSQL Database |
2
MySQL Database, PostgreSQL Database |
| Other Storage |
Zope Object Database
|
|||
| Source Code Repo | ||||
| Issue Tracker | ||||
| Posts | Vanilla | Invision Power Board | GroupServer | Phorum |
| BBCode |
Plugin
|
Yes
|
No
|
Optional
|
| HTML |
Yes
|
Yes
|
No
|
Optional
|
| Emoticons |
Plugin
|
Yes
|
No
|
Optional
|
| Formatting Toolbar |
Plugin
|
Yes
|
No
|
Optional
|
| WYSIWYG Editor |
Plugin
|
Yes
|
No
|
Plugin
|
| Quoting |
Single
|
Nested
|
None
|
Nested
|
| Syntax Highlighting |
Plugin
|
Yes
|
No
|
Plugin
|
| Attachments |
Multiple files
|
Multiple files
|
Multiple files
|
Multiple files
|
| Tags |
Yes
|
Unknown
|
Unknown
|
Unknown
|
| Mark as solved |
A particular post can highlighted as accepted answer
|
|||
| Forums | Vanilla | Invision Power Board | GroupServer | Phorum |
| Categories |
Yes
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
| Subforums |
unlimited
|
unlimited
|
No
|
multiple levels
|
| Last Post |
Yes
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
| Redirect Forums |
Yes
|
Yes
|
No
|
No
|
| Trashcan Forum |
Yes
|
Yes
|
No
|
No
|
| Anti-Spam and Security | Vanilla | Invision Power Board | GroupServer | Phorum |
| CAPTCHA |
Yes
|
Yes
|
No
|
Optional
|
| 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
|
Yes
|
No
|
Plugin
|
| Suspension |
Yes
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
Plugin
|
| Bans |
Yes
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
| IP-Block |
Yes
|
Yes
|
No
|
Yes
|
| Audit Logging |
Yes
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
Optional
|
| User Reports |
Plugin
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
| Other |
Community Curation & SPAM removal
|
Spam Monitoring Service, Flag As Spammer, Question & Answer System
|
Spam Assasin is used for email spam control.
|
Aksimet Plugin
|
| Notification | Vanilla | Invision Power Board | GroupServer | Phorum |
| RSS/ATOM |
Yes
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
|
| Instant Messaging |
No
|
Integrated Chat
|
0
|
|
| Bookmarks |
Yes
|
Yes
|
No
|
Yes
|
| Community | Vanilla | Invision Power Board | GroupServer | Phorum |
| Avatars |
Yes
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
Plugin
|
| User Ranks |
Yes
|
Yes
|
No
|
Plugin
|
| Rating/Karma System |
Yes
|
Yes
|
No
|
Plugin
|
| Signatures |
Plugin
|
Yes
|
No
|
Yes
|
| Users Online List |
Plugin
|
Yes
|
No
|
Plugin
|
| Private Messaging |
Yes
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
| Custom profile fields |
Plugin
|
Yes
|
No
|
Yes
|
| Moderation | Vanilla | Invision Power Board | GroupServer | Phorum |
| Moderators |
global, forums and threads
|
global and forums
|
global and forums
|
global and forums
|
| Move Threads |
Yes
|
Yes
|
Unknown
|
Yes
|
| Split Threads |
Plugin
|
Yes
|
Unknown
|
Yes
|
| Close Threads |
Yes
|
Yes
|
Unknown
|
Yes
|
| Shadow Topics |
Plugin
|
Yes
|
Unknown
|
Yes
|
| Sticky Threads |
Yes
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
| Important Threads |
Yes
|
Yes
|
Unknown
|
Yes
|
| Search | Vanilla | Invision Power Board | GroupServer | Phorum |
| Full-text search |
Yes
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
| Author search |
Yes
|
Yes
|
Unknown
|
Yes
|
| Advanced search |
Yes
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
| Unread Topics |
Database tracked
|
Database tracked
|
Database tracked
|
|
| Customization | Vanilla | Invision Power Board | GroupServer | Phorum |
| Languages |
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 |
0
|
0
|
0
|
| Mobile View |
Yes
|
Unknown
|
Unknown
|
Unknown
|
| Templates |
global and forum specific
|
global and forum specific
|
global and forum specific
|
|
| Custom BBCodes |
Plugin
|
Yes
|
Unknown
|
Plugin
|
| Skin-Editor |
Plugin
|
Yes
|
Unknown
|
No
|
| Smiley Packs |
Plugin
|
Yes
|
Unknown
|
Plugin
|
| Plugins |
Yes
|
Yes
|
No
|
Yes
|
| Special Features | Vanilla | Invision Power Board | GroupServer | Phorum |
| Statistics |
Yes
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
Plugin
|
| Polls |
Plugin
|
Yes
|
Unknown
|
Plugin
|
| Calendar |
Plugin
|
Yes
|
Unknown
|
No
|
| Friendly URLs |
Yes
|
Yes
|
Unknown
|
Plugin
|
| Data Management | Vanilla | Invision Power Board | GroupServer | Phorum |
| Available Importers |
All platforms use: https://open.vanillaforums.com/addon/porter-core
|
|||
| Pruning |
Yes
|
Yes
|
Unknown
|
Yes
|
| Archiving |
Yes
|
Yes
|
Unknown
|
No
|
| Export Formats |
Proprietary or MySQLDump
|
SQL
|
XML, mbox
|
|
| Export private messages |
Yes
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
No
|
| Lo-Fi View |
Yes
|
Yes
|
Unknown
|
Optional
|
| remove Vanilla | remove Invision Power Board | remove GroupServer | remove Phorum |