bbPress vs. phpBB vs. Vanilla vs. SMF vs. Beehive Forum

General bbPress phpBB Vanilla SMF Beehive Forum
Version
0.9.0.4
3.0.8
2.6.4
2.0.6
1.4.7
Release Date
2009-01-02 (15 years ago)
2010-11-19 (13 years ago)
2018-10-28 (5 years ago)
2013-10-21 (10 years ago)
2015-06-03 (8 years ago)
Last Update here
2009-03-11 (15 years ago)
2011-06-22 (12 years ago)
2018-11-01 (5 years ago)
2013-10-25 (10 years ago)
2016-02-08 (8 years ago)
Author
bbpress.org
The phpBB Group
Vanilla Forums Inc
Simple Machines
Matt Beale, Mark Rendle
URL
Free and Open Source
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
License
GPL2
General Public License
GPL
BSD
GPL
License cost
0
0.00
0
0
0
Main View
Both, can be configured
Thread-Type
Flat
Flat
Flat
Flat
Threaded or Flat
Setup bbPress phpBB Vanilla SMF Beehive Forum
Installation method
wizard
wizard
wizard
wizard
wizard
Upgrade method
wizard
wizard with manual interactions
manual
wizard
wizard
Hosting available
No
No
Yes
No
Yes
Technology bbPress phpBB Vanilla SMF Beehive Forum
Programming Language
PHP
PHP
PHP
PHP
PHP
UTF-8 Support
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
1
MySQL Database
3
MySQL Database, PostgreSQL Database, SQLite File Database
1
MySQL Database
Other Storage
Source Code Repo
Issue Tracker
Posts bbPress phpBB Vanilla SMF Beehive Forum
BBCode
Plugin
Yes
Plugin
Yes
No
HTML
Yes
No
Yes
Yes
Yes
Emoticons
Plugin
Yes
Plugin
Yes
Yes
Formatting Toolbar
Plugin
Yes
Plugin
Yes
Yes
WYSIWYG Editor
No
No
Plugin
Yes
Yes
Quoting
Nested
Nested
Single
Nested
Nested
Syntax Highlighting
Plugin
Yes
Plugin
Yes
Yes
Attachments
Multiple files
Multiple files
Multiple files
Multiple files
Multiple files
Tags
Unknown
Unknown
Yes
Unknown
Unknown
Mark as solved
A particular post can highlighted as accepted answer
Forums bbPress phpBB Vanilla SMF Beehive Forum
Categories
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Subforums
unlimited
unlimited
unlimited
unlimited
Last Post
Plugin
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Redirect Forums
Plugin
Yes
Yes
Yes
No
Trashcan Forum
Yes
No
Yes
Yes
Optional
Anti-Spam and Security bbPress phpBB Vanilla SMF Beehive Forum
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
Plugin
Yes
Unknown
Suspension
Plugin
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Bans
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
IP-Block
Plugin
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Audit Logging
Plugin
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
User Reports
Plugin
Yes
Plugin
Yes
Yes
Other
Plugin-based CAPTCHA system, Newly Registered Users permissions
Community Curation & SPAM removal
An Akismet mod is available
Worming, Pilllorying
Notification bbPress phpBB Vanilla SMF Beehive Forum
RSS/ATOM
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
E-Mail
Plugin
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Instant Messaging
Plugin
Jabber
Yes
Bookmarks
Yes
Yes
Yes
Plugin
Yes
Community bbPress phpBB Vanilla SMF Beehive Forum
Avatars
Plugin
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
User Ranks
Plugin
Yes
Yes
Yes
No
Rating/Karma System
Plugin
Patch
Yes
Yes
Yes
Signatures
Plugin
Yes
Plugin
Yes
Yes
Users Online List
Plugin
Yes
Plugin
Yes
Yes
Private Messaging
Plugin
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Custom profile fields
Plugin
Yes
Plugin
Yes
Optional
Moderation bbPress phpBB Vanilla SMF Beehive Forum
Moderators
global
global and forums
global, forums and threads
global, forums and threads
global, forums and threads
Move Threads
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Split Threads
Plugin
Yes
Plugin
Yes
Yes
Close Threads
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Shadow Topics
Unknown
Yes
Plugin
Yes
No
Sticky Threads
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Important Threads
Plugin
Yes
Yes
Plugin
Yes
Search bbPress phpBB Vanilla SMF Beehive Forum
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 phpBB Vanilla SMF Beehive Forum
Languages
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
0
Mobile View
Unknown
Unknown
Yes
Unknown
Unknown
Templates
global
global and forum specific
global and forum specific
global and forum specific
CSS only
Custom BBCodes
Plugin
Yes
Plugin
Plugin
No
Skin-Editor
No
Yes
Plugin
Yes
Yes
Smiley Packs
Plugin
Yes
Plugin
Yes
Yes
Plugins
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
No
Special Features bbPress phpBB Vanilla SMF Beehive Forum
Statistics
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Polls
Plugin
Yes
Plugin
Yes
Yes
Calendar
No
No
Plugin
Yes
No
Friendly URLs
Yes
Plugin
Yes
Plugin
No
Data Management bbPress phpBB Vanilla SMF Beehive Forum
Available Importers
All platforms use: https://open.vanillaforums.com/addon/porter-core
Pruning
Plugin
Yes
Yes
Yes
No
Archiving
Plugin
No
Yes
Plugin
Unknown
Export Formats
BBXF
SQL Dumps in .sql, sql.gz, and .sql.bz2
Proprietary or MySQLDump
WAP(2), IMode
Export private messages
Plugin
Yes
Yes
Plugin
Yes
Lo-Fi View
Plugin
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
remove bbPress remove phpBB remove Vanilla remove SMF remove Beehive Forum