bbPress vs. MyBB vs. phpBB vs. Vanilla

General bbPress MyBB phpBB Vanilla
Version
0.9.0.4
1.6.3
3.0.8
2.6.4
Release Date
2009-01-02 (15 years ago)
2011-04-16 (12 years ago)
2010-11-19 (13 years ago)
2018-10-28 (5 years ago)
Last Update here
2009-03-11 (15 years ago)
2011-06-22 (12 years ago)
2011-06-22 (12 years ago)
2018-11-01 (5 years ago)
Author
bbpress.org
MyBB Group
The phpBB Group
Vanilla Forums Inc
URL
Free and Open Source
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
License
GPL2
Custom
General Public License
GPL
License cost
0
US$0
0.00
0
Main View
Both, can be configured
Thread-Type
Flat
Threaded or Flat
Flat
Flat
Setup bbPress MyBB phpBB Vanilla
Installation method
wizard
wizard
wizard
wizard
Upgrade method
wizard
wizard
wizard with manual interactions
manual
Hosting available
No
No
No
Yes
Technology bbPress MyBB phpBB Vanilla
Programming Language
PHP
PHP
PHP
PHP
UTF-8 Support
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Data Storage
1
MySQL Database
3
MySQL Database, PostgreSQL Database, SQLite File Database
6
Firebird Database, Microsoft SQL Database, MySQL Database, Oracle Database, PostgreSQL Database, SQLite File Database
1
MySQL Database
Other Storage
Source Code Repo
Issue Tracker
Posts bbPress MyBB phpBB Vanilla
BBCode
Plugin
Yes
Yes
Plugin
HTML
Yes
Yes
No
Yes
Emoticons
Plugin
Yes
Yes
Plugin
Formatting Toolbar
Plugin
Yes
Yes
Plugin
WYSIWYG Editor
No
Plugin
No
Plugin
Quoting
Nested
Nested
Nested
Single
Syntax Highlighting
Plugin
Yes
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 bbPress MyBB phpBB Vanilla
Categories
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Subforums
unlimited
unlimited
unlimited
unlimited
Last Post
Plugin
Yes
Yes
Yes
Redirect Forums
Plugin
Yes
Yes
Yes
Trashcan Forum
Yes
Plugin
No
Yes
Anti-Spam and Security bbPress MyBB phpBB Vanilla
CAPTCHA
Plugin
Yes
Yes
Yes
Groups
One group only
Multiple groups
Multiple groups
Multiple groups
Flood Control
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
ACLs
No
Yes
Yes
Yes
Blacklist
Plugin
Yes
Yes
Yes
Warnings
Plugin
Yes
Yes
Plugin
Suspension
Plugin
Yes
Yes
Yes
Bans
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
IP-Block
Plugin
Yes
Yes
Yes
Audit Logging
Plugin
Yes
Yes
Yes
User Reports
Plugin
Yes
Yes
Plugin
Other
Akismet plugin available.
Plugin-based CAPTCHA system, Newly Registered Users permissions
Community Curation & SPAM removal
Notification bbPress MyBB phpBB Vanilla
RSS/ATOM
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
E-Mail
Plugin
Yes
Yes
Yes
Instant Messaging
Plugin
Jabber
Bookmarks
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Community bbPress MyBB phpBB Vanilla
Avatars
Plugin
Yes
Yes
Yes
User Ranks
Plugin
Yes
Yes
Yes
Rating/Karma System
Plugin
Yes
Patch
Yes
Signatures
Plugin
Yes
Yes
Plugin
Users Online List
Plugin
Yes
Yes
Plugin
Private Messaging
Plugin
Yes
Yes
Yes
Custom profile fields
Plugin
Yes
Yes
Plugin
Moderation bbPress MyBB phpBB Vanilla
Moderators
global
global and forums
global and forums
global, forums and threads
Move Threads
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Split Threads
Plugin
Yes
Yes
Plugin
Close Threads
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Shadow Topics
Unknown
Yes
Yes
Plugin
Sticky Threads
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Important Threads
Plugin
Yes
Yes
Yes
Search bbPress MyBB phpBB Vanilla
Full-text search
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Author search
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Advanced search
Plugin
Yes
Yes
Yes
Unread Topics
Database tracked
Database tracked
Database tracked
Customization bbPress MyBB phpBB 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
global and forum specific
global and forum specific
global and forum specific
Custom BBCodes
Plugin
Yes
Yes
Plugin
Skin-Editor
No
Yes
Yes
Plugin
Smiley Packs
Plugin
Yes
Yes
Plugin
Plugins
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Special Features bbPress MyBB phpBB Vanilla
Statistics
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Polls
Plugin
Yes
Yes
Plugin
Calendar
No
Yes
No
Plugin
Friendly URLs
Yes
Plugin
Plugin
Yes
Data Management bbPress MyBB phpBB Vanilla
Available Importers
All platforms use: https://open.vanillaforums.com/addon/porter-core
Pruning
Plugin
Plugin
Yes
Yes
Archiving
Plugin
No
No
Yes
Export Formats
BBXF
SQL Dumps in .sql, sql.gz, and .sql.bz2
Proprietary or MySQLDump
Export private messages
Plugin
Yes
Yes
Yes
Lo-Fi View
Plugin
Yes
Yes
Yes
remove bbPress remove MyBB remove phpBB remove Vanilla