bbPress vs. MyBB vs. SMF vs. Vanilla vs. Phorum

General bbPress MyBB SMF Vanilla Phorum
Version
0.9.0.4
1.6.3
2.0.6
2.6.4
5.2.9a
Release Date
2009-01-02 (15 years ago)
2011-04-16 (12 years ago)
2013-10-21 (10 years ago)
2018-10-28 (5 years ago)
2008-10-12 (15 years ago)
Last Update here
2009-03-11 (15 years ago)
2011-06-22 (12 years ago)
2013-10-25 (10 years ago)
2018-11-01 (5 years ago)
2008-10-16 (15 years ago)
Author
bbpress.org
MyBB Group
Simple Machines
Vanilla Forums Inc
Phorum Dev Team
URL
Free and Open Source
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
License
GPL2
Custom
BSD
GPL
The Phorum License (BSD)
License cost
0
US$0
0
0
0
Main View
Both, can be configured
Thread-Type
Flat
Threaded or Flat
Flat
Flat
Threaded or Flat
Setup bbPress MyBB SMF Vanilla Phorum
Installation method
wizard
wizard
wizard
wizard
wizard
Upgrade method
wizard
wizard
wizard
manual
wizard
Hosting available
No
No
No
Yes
No
Technology bbPress MyBB SMF Vanilla Phorum
Programming Language
PHP
PHP
PHP
PHP
PHP
UTF-8 Support
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Data Storage
1
MySQL Database
3
MySQL Database, PostgreSQL Database, SQLite File Database
3
MySQL Database, PostgreSQL Database, SQLite File Database
1
MySQL Database
2
MySQL Database, PostgreSQL Database
Other Storage
Source Code Repo
Issue Tracker
Posts bbPress MyBB SMF Vanilla Phorum
BBCode
Plugin
Yes
Yes
Plugin
Optional
HTML
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Optional
Emoticons
Plugin
Yes
Yes
Plugin
Optional
Formatting Toolbar
Plugin
Yes
Yes
Plugin
Optional
WYSIWYG Editor
No
Plugin
Yes
Plugin
Plugin
Quoting
Nested
Nested
Nested
Single
Nested
Syntax Highlighting
Plugin
Yes
Yes
Plugin
Plugin
Attachments
Multiple files
Multiple files
Multiple files
Multiple files
Multiple files
Tags
Unknown
Unknown
Unknown
Yes
Unknown
Mark as solved
A particular post can highlighted as accepted answer
Forums bbPress MyBB SMF Vanilla Phorum
Categories
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Subforums
unlimited
unlimited
unlimited
unlimited
multiple levels
Last Post
Plugin
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Redirect Forums
Plugin
Yes
Yes
Yes
No
Trashcan Forum
Yes
Plugin
Yes
Yes
No
Anti-Spam and Security bbPress MyBB SMF Vanilla Phorum
CAPTCHA
Plugin
Yes
Yes
Yes
Optional
Groups
One group only
Multiple groups
Multiple groups
Multiple groups
Multiple groups
Flood Control
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
ACLs
No
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Blacklist
Plugin
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Warnings
Plugin
Yes
Yes
Plugin
Plugin
Suspension
Plugin
Yes
Yes
Yes
Plugin
Bans
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
IP-Block
Plugin
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Audit Logging
Plugin
Yes
Yes
Yes
Optional
User Reports
Plugin
Yes
Yes
Plugin
Yes
Other
Akismet plugin available.
An Akismet mod is available
Community Curation & SPAM removal
Aksimet Plugin
Notification bbPress MyBB SMF Vanilla Phorum
RSS/ATOM
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
E-Mail
Plugin
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Instant Messaging
Plugin
0
Bookmarks
Yes
Yes
Plugin
Yes
Yes
Community bbPress MyBB SMF Vanilla Phorum
Avatars
Plugin
Yes
Yes
Yes
Plugin
User Ranks
Plugin
Yes
Yes
Yes
Plugin
Rating/Karma System
Plugin
Yes
Yes
Yes
Plugin
Signatures
Plugin
Yes
Yes
Plugin
Yes
Users Online List
Plugin
Yes
Yes
Plugin
Plugin
Private Messaging
Plugin
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Custom profile fields
Plugin
Yes
Yes
Plugin
Yes
Moderation bbPress MyBB SMF Vanilla Phorum
Moderators
global
global and forums
global, forums and threads
global, forums and threads
global and forums
Move Threads
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Split Threads
Plugin
Yes
Yes
Plugin
Yes
Close Threads
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Shadow Topics
Unknown
Yes
Yes
Plugin
Yes
Sticky Threads
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Important Threads
Plugin
Yes
Plugin
Yes
Yes
Search bbPress MyBB SMF Vanilla Phorum
Full-text search
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Author search
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Advanced search
Plugin
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Unread Topics
Database tracked
Database tracked
Database tracked
Database tracked
Customization bbPress MyBB SMF Vanilla Phorum
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
0
Mobile View
Unknown
Unknown
Unknown
Yes
Unknown
Templates
global
global and forum specific
global and forum specific
global and forum specific
global and forum specific
Custom BBCodes
Plugin
Yes
Plugin
Plugin
Plugin
Skin-Editor
No
Yes
Yes
Plugin
No
Smiley Packs
Plugin
Yes
Yes
Plugin
Plugin
Plugins
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Special Features bbPress MyBB SMF Vanilla Phorum
Statistics
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Plugin
Polls
Plugin
Yes
Yes
Plugin
Plugin
Calendar
No
Yes
Yes
Plugin
No
Friendly URLs
Yes
Plugin
Plugin
Yes
Plugin
Data Management bbPress MyBB SMF Vanilla Phorum
Available Importers
All platforms use: https://open.vanillaforums.com/addon/porter-core
Pruning
Plugin
Plugin
Yes
Yes
Yes
Archiving
Plugin
No
Plugin
Yes
No
Export Formats
BBXF
WAP(2), IMode
Proprietary or MySQLDump
Export private messages
Plugin
Yes
Plugin
Yes
No
Lo-Fi View
Plugin
Yes
Yes
Yes
Optional
remove bbPress remove MyBB remove SMF remove Vanilla remove Phorum