bbPress vs. phpBB vs. SMF vs. MyBB vs. miniBB vs. Vanilla

General bbPress phpBB SMF MyBB miniBB Vanilla
Version
0.9.0.4
3.0.8
2.0.6
1.6.3
2.4
2.6.4
Release Date
2009-01-02 (15 years ago)
2010-11-19 (13 years ago)
2013-10-21 (10 years ago)
2011-04-16 (12 years ago)
2008-08-17 (15 years ago)
2018-10-28 (5 years ago)
Last Update here
2009-03-11 (15 years ago)
2011-06-22 (12 years ago)
2013-10-25 (10 years ago)
2011-06-22 (12 years ago)
2009-09-02 (14 years ago)
2018-11-01 (5 years ago)
Author
bbpress.org
The phpBB Group
Simple Machines
MyBB Group
miniBB Team
Vanilla Forums Inc
URL
Free and Open Source
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
License
GPL2
General Public License
BSD
Custom
GPL
GPL
License cost
0
0.00
0
US$0
Free
0
Main View
Both, can be configured
Thread-Type
Flat
Flat
Flat
Threaded or Flat
Flat
Flat
Setup bbPress phpBB SMF MyBB miniBB Vanilla
Installation method
wizard
wizard
wizard
wizard
wizard
wizard
Upgrade method
wizard
wizard with manual interactions
wizard
wizard
manual
manual
Hosting available
No
No
No
No
No
Yes
Technology bbPress phpBB SMF MyBB miniBB Vanilla
Programming Language
PHP
PHP
PHP
PHP
PHP
PHP
UTF-8 Support
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Data Storage
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
3
MySQL Database, PostgreSQL Database, SQLite File Database
1
MySQL Database
1
MySQL Database
Other Storage
Source Code Repo
Issue Tracker
Posts bbPress phpBB SMF MyBB miniBB Vanilla
BBCode
Plugin
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Plugin
HTML
Yes
No
Yes
Yes
Optional
Yes
Emoticons
Plugin
Yes
Yes
Yes
Plugin
Plugin
Formatting Toolbar
Plugin
Yes
Yes
Yes
Plugin
Plugin
WYSIWYG Editor
No
No
Yes
Plugin
Plugin
Plugin
Quoting
Nested
Nested
Nested
Nested
Single
Single
Syntax Highlighting
Plugin
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Plugin
Attachments
Multiple files
Multiple files
Multiple files
Multiple files
Multiple files
Multiple files
Tags
Unknown
Unknown
Unknown
Unknown
Unknown
Yes
Mark as solved
A particular post can highlighted as accepted answer
Forums bbPress phpBB SMF MyBB miniBB Vanilla
Categories
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Subforums
unlimited
unlimited
unlimited
unlimited
one level
unlimited
Last Post
Plugin
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Redirect Forums
Plugin
Yes
Yes
Yes
No
Yes
Trashcan Forum
Yes
No
Yes
Plugin
Yes
Yes
Anti-Spam and Security bbPress phpBB SMF MyBB miniBB Vanilla
CAPTCHA
Plugin
Yes
Yes
Yes
Plugin
Yes
Groups
One group only
Multiple groups
Multiple groups
Multiple groups
No
Multiple groups
Flood Control
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Plugin
Yes
ACLs
No
Yes
Yes
Yes
Plugin
Yes
Blacklist
Plugin
Yes
Yes
Yes
Plugin
Yes
Warnings
Plugin
Yes
Yes
Yes
Plugin
Plugin
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
Yes
Yes
Yes
Plugin
Yes
User Reports
Plugin
Yes
Yes
Yes
No
Plugin
Other
Plugin-based CAPTCHA system, Newly Registered Users permissions
An Akismet mod is available
Akismet plugin available.
Community Curation & SPAM removal
Notification bbPress phpBB SMF MyBB miniBB Vanilla
RSS/ATOM
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Plugin
Yes
E-Mail
Plugin
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Instant Messaging
Plugin
Jabber
0
Bookmarks
Yes
Yes
Plugin
Yes
Plugin
Yes
Community bbPress phpBB SMF MyBB miniBB Vanilla
Avatars
Plugin
Yes
Yes
Yes
Plugin
Yes
User Ranks
Plugin
Yes
Yes
Yes
Plugin
Yes
Rating/Karma System
Plugin
Patch
Yes
Yes
Plugin
Yes
Signatures
Plugin
Yes
Yes
Yes
Plugin
Plugin
Users Online List
Plugin
Yes
Yes
Yes
Plugin
Plugin
Private Messaging
Plugin
Yes
Yes
Yes
Plugin
Yes
Custom profile fields
Plugin
Yes
Yes
Yes
Plugin
Plugin
Moderation bbPress phpBB SMF MyBB miniBB Vanilla
Moderators
global
global and forums
global, forums and threads
global and forums
global and forums
global, forums and threads
Move Threads
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Split Threads
Plugin
Yes
Yes
Yes
Plugin
Plugin
Close Threads
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Shadow Topics
Unknown
Yes
Yes
Yes
Plugin
Plugin
Sticky Threads
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Important Threads
Plugin
Yes
Plugin
Yes
Plugin
Yes
Search bbPress phpBB SMF MyBB miniBB Vanilla
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 phpBB SMF MyBB miniBB Vanilla
Languages
0
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
Mobile View
Unknown
Unknown
Unknown
Unknown
Unknown
Yes
Templates
global
global and forum specific
global and forum specific
global and forum specific
global
global and forum specific
Custom BBCodes
Plugin
Yes
Plugin
Yes
Patch
Plugin
Skin-Editor
No
Yes
Yes
Yes
Plugin
Plugin
Smiley Packs
Plugin
Yes
Yes
Yes
Plugin
Plugin
Plugins
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Special Features bbPress phpBB SMF MyBB miniBB Vanilla
Statistics
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Polls
Plugin
Yes
Yes
Yes
Plugin
Plugin
Calendar
No
No
Yes
Yes
Plugin
Plugin
Friendly URLs
Yes
Plugin
Plugin
Plugin
Optional
Yes
Data Management bbPress phpBB SMF MyBB miniBB Vanilla
Available Importers
All platforms use: https://open.vanillaforums.com/addon/porter-core
Pruning
Plugin
Yes
Yes
Plugin
Plugin
Yes
Archiving
Plugin
No
Plugin
No
Plugin
Yes
Export Formats
BBXF
SQL Dumps in .sql, sql.gz, and .sql.bz2
WAP(2), IMode
Users' logins/emails can be exported in CSV or TXT
Proprietary or MySQLDump
Export private messages
Plugin
Yes
Plugin
Yes
Plugin
Yes
Lo-Fi View
Plugin
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
remove bbPress remove phpBB remove SMF remove MyBB remove miniBB remove Vanilla