bbPress vs. miniBB vs. phpBB vs. SMF vs. Vanilla vs. vBulletin

General bbPress miniBB phpBB SMF Vanilla vBulletin
Version
0.9.0.4
2.4
3.0.8
2.0.6
2.6.4
4.1.5
Release Date
2009-01-02 (15 years ago)
2008-08-17 (15 years ago)
2010-11-19 (13 years ago)
2013-10-21 (10 years ago)
2018-10-28 (5 years ago)
2011-07-26 (12 years ago)
Last Update here
2009-03-11 (15 years ago)
2009-09-02 (14 years ago)
2011-06-22 (12 years ago)
2013-10-25 (10 years ago)
2018-11-01 (5 years ago)
2011-08-25 (12 years ago)
Author
bbpress.org
miniBB Team
The phpBB Group
Simple Machines
Vanilla Forums Inc
vBulletin Solutions
URL
Free and Open Source
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
No
License
GPL2
GPL
General Public License
BSD
GPL
commercial / visible source
License cost
0
Free
0.00
0
0
$285 Suite or $195 Forum
Main View
Both, can be configured
Thread-Type
Flat
Flat
Flat
Flat
Flat
Threaded or Flat
Setup bbPress miniBB phpBB SMF Vanilla vBulletin
Installation method
wizard
wizard
wizard
wizard
wizard
wizard
Upgrade method
wizard
manual
wizard with manual interactions
wizard
manual
wizard with manual interactions
Hosting available
No
No
No
No
Yes
No
Technology bbPress miniBB phpBB SMF Vanilla vBulletin
Programming Language
PHP
PHP
PHP
PHP
PHP
PHP
UTF-8 Support
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Data Storage
1
MySQL Database
1
MySQL Database
6
Firebird Database, Microsoft SQL Database, MySQL Database, Oracle Database, PostgreSQL Database, SQLite File Database
3
MySQL Database, PostgreSQL Database, SQLite File Database
1
MySQL Database
1
MySQL Database
Other Storage
Source Code Repo
Issue Tracker
Posts bbPress miniBB phpBB SMF Vanilla vBulletin
BBCode
Plugin
Yes
Yes
Yes
Plugin
Yes
HTML
Yes
Optional
No
Yes
Yes
Yes
Emoticons
Plugin
Plugin
Yes
Yes
Plugin
Yes
Formatting Toolbar
Plugin
Plugin
Yes
Yes
Plugin
Yes
WYSIWYG Editor
No
Plugin
No
Yes
Plugin
Yes
Quoting
Nested
Single
Nested
Nested
Single
Nested
Syntax Highlighting
Plugin
Yes
Yes
Yes
Plugin
Yes
Attachments
Multiple files
Multiple files
Multiple files
Multiple files
Multiple files
Multiple files
Tags
Unknown
Unknown
Unknown
Unknown
Yes
Unknown
Mark as solved
A particular post can highlighted as accepted answer
Forums bbPress miniBB phpBB SMF Vanilla vBulletin
Categories
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Subforums
unlimited
one level
unlimited
unlimited
unlimited
unlimited
Last Post
Plugin
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Redirect Forums
Plugin
No
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Trashcan Forum
Yes
Yes
No
Yes
Yes
Yes
Anti-Spam and Security bbPress miniBB phpBB SMF Vanilla vBulletin
CAPTCHA
Plugin
Plugin
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Groups
One group only
No
Multiple groups
Multiple groups
Multiple groups
Multiple groups
Flood Control
Yes
Plugin
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
ACLs
No
Plugin
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Blacklist
Plugin
Plugin
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Warnings
Plugin
Plugin
Yes
Yes
Plugin
Yes
Suspension
Plugin
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Bans
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
IP-Block
Plugin
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Audit Logging
Plugin
Plugin
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
User Reports
Plugin
No
Yes
Yes
Plugin
Yes
Other
Plugin-based CAPTCHA system, Newly Registered Users permissions
An Akismet mod is available
Community Curation & SPAM removal
Akismet
Notification bbPress miniBB phpBB SMF Vanilla vBulletin
RSS/ATOM
Yes
Plugin
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
E-Mail
Plugin
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Instant Messaging
Plugin
0
Jabber
Bookmarks
Yes
Plugin
Yes
Plugin
Yes
Yes
Community bbPress miniBB phpBB SMF Vanilla vBulletin
Avatars
Plugin
Plugin
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
User Ranks
Plugin
Plugin
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Rating/Karma System
Plugin
Plugin
Patch
Yes
Yes
Yes
Signatures
Plugin
Plugin
Yes
Yes
Plugin
Yes
Users Online List
Plugin
Plugin
Yes
Yes
Plugin
Yes
Private Messaging
Plugin
Plugin
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Custom profile fields
Plugin
Plugin
Yes
Yes
Plugin
Yes
Moderation bbPress miniBB phpBB SMF Vanilla vBulletin
Moderators
global
global and forums
global and forums
global, forums and threads
global, forums and threads
global and forums
Move Threads
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Split Threads
Plugin
Plugin
Yes
Yes
Plugin
Yes
Close Threads
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Shadow Topics
Unknown
Plugin
Yes
Yes
Plugin
Yes
Sticky Threads
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Important Threads
Plugin
Plugin
Yes
Plugin
Yes
Yes
Search bbPress miniBB phpBB SMF Vanilla vBulletin
Full-text search
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Author search
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Advanced search
Plugin
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Unread Topics
Database tracked
Database tracked
Database tracked
Database tracked
Database tracked
Customization bbPress miniBB phpBB SMF Vanilla vBulletin
Languages
0
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
0
Mobile View
Unknown
Unknown
Unknown
Unknown
Yes
Unknown
Templates
global
global
global and forum specific
global and forum specific
global and forum specific
global and forum specific
Custom BBCodes
Plugin
Patch
Yes
Plugin
Plugin
Yes
Skin-Editor
No
Plugin
Yes
Yes
Plugin
Yes
Smiley Packs
Plugin
Plugin
Yes
Yes
Plugin
Yes
Plugins
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Special Features bbPress miniBB phpBB SMF Vanilla vBulletin
Statistics
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Polls
Plugin
Plugin
Yes
Yes
Plugin
Yes
Calendar
No
Plugin
No
Yes
Plugin
Yes
Friendly URLs
Yes
Optional
Plugin
Plugin
Yes
Yes
Data Management bbPress miniBB phpBB SMF Vanilla vBulletin
Available Importers
All platforms use: https://open.vanillaforums.com/addon/porter-core
Pruning
Plugin
Plugin
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Archiving
Plugin
Plugin
No
Plugin
Yes
Yes
Export Formats
BBXF
Users' logins/emails can be exported in CSV or TXT
SQL Dumps in .sql, sql.gz, and .sql.bz2
WAP(2), IMode
Proprietary or MySQLDump
Single Table CSV, Single and Multi-Table SQL
Export private messages
Plugin
Plugin
Yes
Plugin
Yes
Yes
Lo-Fi View
Plugin
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
remove bbPress remove miniBB remove phpBB remove SMF remove Vanilla remove vBulletin