bbPress vs. phpBB vs. SMF vs. Phorum vs. Vanilla vs. FUDforum

General bbPress phpBB SMF Phorum Vanilla FUDforum
Version
0.9.0.4
3.0.8
2.0.6
5.2.9a
2.6.4
3.0.9
Release Date
2009-01-02 (15 years ago)
2010-11-19 (13 years ago)
2013-10-21 (10 years ago)
2008-10-12 (15 years ago)
2018-10-28 (5 years ago)
2018-05-17 (5 years ago)
Last Update here
2009-03-11 (15 years ago)
2011-06-22 (12 years ago)
2013-10-25 (10 years ago)
2008-10-16 (15 years ago)
2018-11-01 (5 years ago)
2018-11-01 (5 years ago)
Author
bbpress.org
The phpBB Group
Simple Machines
Phorum Dev Team
Vanilla Forums Inc
The FUDForum development team and user community.
URL
Free and Open Source
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
License
GPL2
General Public License
BSD
The Phorum License (BSD)
GPL
GNU General Public License
License cost
0
0.00
0
0
0
Free
Main View
Both, can be configured
Classic forum list
Thread-Type
Flat
Flat
Flat
Threaded or Flat
Flat
Threaded or Flat
Setup bbPress phpBB SMF Phorum Vanilla FUDforum
Installation method
wizard
wizard
wizard
wizard
wizard
wizard
Upgrade method
wizard
wizard with manual interactions
wizard
wizard
manual
wizard
Hosting available
No
No
No
No
Yes
Yes
Technology bbPress phpBB SMF Phorum Vanilla FUDforum
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
2
MySQL Database, PostgreSQL Database
1
MySQL Database
7
DB2 Database, Firebird Database, Microsoft SQL Database, MySQL Database, Oracle Database, PostgreSQL Database, SQLite File Database
Other Storage
Source Code Repo
Issue Tracker
Posts bbPress phpBB SMF Phorum Vanilla FUDforum
BBCode
Plugin
Yes
Yes
Optional
Plugin
Yes
HTML
Yes
No
Yes
Optional
Yes
Yes
Emoticons
Plugin
Yes
Yes
Optional
Plugin
Yes
Formatting Toolbar
Plugin
Yes
Yes
Optional
Plugin
Yes
WYSIWYG Editor
No
No
Yes
Plugin
Plugin
Plugin
Quoting
Nested
Nested
Nested
Nested
Single
Nested
Syntax Highlighting
Plugin
Yes
Yes
Plugin
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
No
Forums bbPress phpBB SMF Phorum Vanilla FUDforum
Categories
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Subforums
unlimited
unlimited
unlimited
multiple levels
unlimited
unlimited
Last Post
Plugin
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Redirect Forums
Plugin
Yes
Yes
No
Yes
Yes
Trashcan Forum
Yes
No
Yes
No
Yes
Yes
Anti-Spam and Security bbPress phpBB SMF Phorum Vanilla FUDforum
CAPTCHA
Plugin
Yes
Yes
Optional
Yes
Yes
Groups
One group only
Multiple groups
Multiple groups
Multiple groups
Multiple groups
Multiple groups
Flood Control
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
ACLs
No
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Blacklist
Plugin
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Warnings
Plugin
Yes
Yes
Plugin
Plugin
Yes
Suspension
Plugin
Yes
Yes
Plugin
Yes
Yes
Bans
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
IP-Block
Plugin
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Audit Logging
Plugin
Yes
Yes
Optional
Yes
Yes
User Reports
Plugin
Yes
Yes
Yes
Plugin
Yes
Other
Plugin-based CAPTCHA system, Newly Registered Users permissions
An Akismet mod is available
Aksimet Plugin
Community Curation & SPAM removal
Several others like SpamBot detection, prevent new users from posting links, etc.
Notification bbPress phpBB SMF Phorum Vanilla FUDforum
RSS/ATOM
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
E-Mail
Plugin
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Instant Messaging
Plugin
Jabber
0
Yes - via ICQ, AIM, Yahoo Messenger, MSN Messenger, Jabber, Google Chat or Skype.
Bookmarks
Yes
Yes
Plugin
Yes
Yes
Yes
Community bbPress phpBB SMF Phorum Vanilla FUDforum
Avatars
Plugin
Yes
Yes
Plugin
Yes
Yes
User Ranks
Plugin
Yes
Yes
Plugin
Yes
Yes
Rating/Karma System
Plugin
Patch
Yes
Plugin
Yes
Yes
Signatures
Plugin
Yes
Yes
Yes
Plugin
Yes
Users Online List
Plugin
Yes
Yes
Plugin
Plugin
Yes
Private Messaging
Plugin
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Custom profile fields
Plugin
Yes
Yes
Yes
Plugin
Yes
Moderation bbPress phpBB SMF Phorum Vanilla FUDforum
Moderators
global
global and forums
global, forums and threads
global and forums
global, forums and threads
global and forums
Move Threads
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Split Threads
Plugin
Yes
Yes
Yes
Plugin
Yes
Close Threads
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Shadow Topics
Unknown
Yes
Yes
Yes
Plugin
Yes
Sticky Threads
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Important Threads
Plugin
Yes
Plugin
Yes
Yes
Yes
Search bbPress phpBB SMF Phorum Vanilla FUDforum
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 Phorum Vanilla FUDforum
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
Yes
Templates
global
global and forum specific
global and forum specific
global and forum specific
global and forum specific
global
Custom BBCodes
Plugin
Yes
Plugin
Plugin
Plugin
Plugin
Skin-Editor
No
Yes
Yes
No
Plugin
Yes
Smiley Packs
Plugin
Yes
Yes
Plugin
Plugin
Patch
Plugins
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Special Features bbPress phpBB SMF Phorum Vanilla FUDforum
Statistics
Yes
Yes
Yes
Plugin
Yes
Yes
Polls
Plugin
Yes
Yes
Plugin
Plugin
Yes
Calendar
No
No
Yes
No
Plugin
Yes
Friendly URLs
Yes
Plugin
Plugin
Plugin
Yes
Yes
Data Management bbPress phpBB SMF Phorum Vanilla FUDforum
Available Importers
All platforms use: https://open.vanillaforums.com/addon/porter-core
Pruning
Plugin
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Archiving
Plugin
No
Plugin
No
Yes
Optional
Export Formats
BBXF
SQL Dumps in .sql, sql.gz, and .sql.bz2
WAP(2), IMode
Proprietary or MySQLDump
PDF (Adobe), ATOM, RSS, RDF, HTML
Export private messages
Plugin
Yes
Plugin
No
Yes
Yes
Lo-Fi View
Plugin
Yes
Yes
Optional
Yes
Optional
remove bbPress remove phpBB remove SMF remove Phorum remove Vanilla remove FUDforum