| General | bttlxeForum | GroupServer | Phorum | idealBB | Vanilla | XMB |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Version |
2.0
|
1.0β
|
5.2.9a
|
Ideal BB.Net Version 3.1.6
|
2.6.4
|
1.9.11
|
| Release Date |
2004-08-01 (21 years ago)
|
2010 June 16
|
2008-10-13 (17 years ago)
|
2006-12-04 (19 years ago)
|
2018-10-29 (7 years ago)
|
Febuary 28, 2009
|
| Last Update here |
2008-01-21 (18 years ago)
|
2010-06-21 (16 years ago)
|
2008-10-16 (17 years ago)
|
2006-12-04 (19 years ago)
|
2018-11-01 (7 years ago)
|
2012-03-02 (14 years ago)
|
| Author |
Battleaxe Software
|
OnlineGroups.Net
|
Phorum Dev Team
|
Ideal Science, Inc.
|
Vanilla Forums Inc
|
The XMB Group
|
| URL | ||||||
| Free and Open Source |
Yes
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
No
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
| License |
Free
|
GPL
|
The Phorum License (BSD)
|
GPL
|
General Public License
|
|
| License cost |
Free
|
$0
|
0
|
$299 - $24,999
|
0
|
0.00
|
| Main View |
Both, can be configured
|
|||||
| Thread-Type |
Threaded or Flat
|
Flat
|
Threaded or Flat
|
Threaded
|
Flat
|
Flat
|
| Setup | bttlxeForum | GroupServer | Phorum | idealBB | Vanilla | XMB |
| Installation method |
manual
|
wizard
|
wizard
|
wizard
|
||
| Upgrade method |
manual
|
wizard
|
manual
|
wizard
|
||
| Hosting available |
No
|
Yes
|
No
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
No
|
| Technology | bttlxeForum | GroupServer | Phorum | idealBB | Vanilla | XMB |
| Programming Language |
ASP
|
Python & Zope
|
PHP
|
ASP.Net, C #
|
PHP
|
php
|
| UTF-8 Support |
Yes
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
No
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
| Data Storage |
2
Microsoft SQL Database, MySQL Database |
1
PostgreSQL Database |
2
MySQL Database, PostgreSQL Database |
1
MySQL Database |
1
MySQL Database |
1
MySQL Database |
| Other Storage |
MS Access
|
Zope Object Database
|
||||
| Source Code Repo | ||||||
| Issue Tracker | ||||||
| Posts | bttlxeForum | GroupServer | Phorum | idealBB | Vanilla | XMB |
| BBCode |
Yes
|
No
|
Optional
|
Yes
|
Plugin
|
Yes
|
| HTML |
Yes
|
No
|
Optional
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
Optional
|
| Emoticons |
Yes
|
No
|
Optional
|
Yes
|
Plugin
|
Yes
|
| Formatting Toolbar |
Yes
|
No
|
Optional
|
Yes
|
Plugin
|
Yes
|
| WYSIWYG Editor |
No
|
No
|
Plugin
|
No
|
Plugin
|
No
|
| Quoting |
Nested
|
None
|
Nested
|
Single
|
Single
|
Nested
|
| Syntax Highlighting |
No
|
No
|
Plugin
|
Unknown
|
Plugin
|
No
|
| Attachments |
No
|
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
|
|||||
| Forums | bttlxeForum | GroupServer | Phorum | idealBB | Vanilla | XMB |
| Categories |
Yes
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
| Subforums |
No
|
No
|
multiple levels
|
one level
|
unlimited
|
one level
|
| Last Post |
Yes
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
| Redirect Forums |
No
|
No
|
No
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
No
|
| Trashcan Forum |
No
|
No
|
No
|
No
|
Yes
|
No
|
| Anti-Spam and Security | bttlxeForum | GroupServer | Phorum | idealBB | Vanilla | XMB |
| CAPTCHA |
No
|
No
|
Optional
|
Unknown
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
| Groups |
Multiple groups
|
Multiple groups
|
Multiple groups
|
Multiple groups
|
Multiple groups
|
Multiple groups
|
| Flood Control |
Patch
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
Unknown
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
| ACLs |
No
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
Unknown
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
| Blacklist |
No
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
| Warnings |
No
|
No
|
Plugin
|
Yes
|
Plugin
|
Plugin
|
| Suspension |
No
|
Yes
|
Plugin
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
Plugin
|
| Bans |
Patch
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
| IP-Block |
Patch
|
No
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
| Audit Logging |
Unknown
|
Yes
|
Optional
|
Unknown
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
| User Reports |
Unknown
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
Unknown
|
Plugin
|
Yes
|
| Other |
Spam Assasin is used for email spam control.
|
Aksimet Plugin
|
Community Curation & SPAM removal
|
|||
| Notification | bttlxeForum | GroupServer | Phorum | idealBB | Vanilla | XMB |
| RSS/ATOM |
No
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
No
|
Yes
|
Plugin
|
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
|
| Instant Messaging |
None
|
Integrated Chat
|
0
|
No
|
||
| Bookmarks |
No
|
No
|
Yes
|
No
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
| Community | bttlxeForum | GroupServer | Phorum | idealBB | Vanilla | XMB |
| Avatars |
Yes
|
Yes
|
Plugin
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
| User Ranks |
Yes
|
No
|
Plugin
|
No
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
| Rating/Karma System |
No
|
No
|
Plugin
|
No
|
Yes
|
Plugin
|
| Signatures |
Yes
|
No
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
Plugin
|
Yes
|
| Users Online List |
Yes
|
No
|
Plugin
|
Yes
|
Plugin
|
Yes
|
| Private Messaging |
Yes
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
| Custom profile fields |
No
|
No
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
Plugin
|
Plugin
|
| Moderation | bttlxeForum | GroupServer | Phorum | idealBB | Vanilla | XMB |
| Moderators |
global and forums
|
global and forums
|
global and forums
|
global and forums
|
global, forums and threads
|
global and forums
|
| Move Threads |
No
|
Unknown
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
| Split Threads |
No
|
Unknown
|
Yes
|
No
|
Plugin
|
Yes
|
| Close Threads |
Yes
|
Unknown
|
Yes
|
Unknown
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
| Shadow Topics |
No
|
Unknown
|
Yes
|
Unknown
|
Plugin
|
Yes
|
| Sticky Threads |
No
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
| Important Threads |
No
|
Unknown
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
| Search | bttlxeForum | GroupServer | Phorum | idealBB | Vanilla | XMB |
| Full-text search |
Yes
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
| Author search |
Yes
|
Unknown
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
| Advanced search |
Yes
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
No
|
| Unread Topics |
Database tracked
|
Database tracked
|
Session tracked
|
|||
| Customization | bttlxeForum | GroupServer | Phorum | idealBB | Vanilla | XMB |
| 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
|
Unknown
|
| Templates |
CSS only
|
global and forum specific
|
global
|
global and forum specific
|
global and forum specific
|
|
| Custom BBCodes |
No
|
Unknown
|
Plugin
|
Unknown
|
Plugin
|
Plugin
|
| Skin-Editor |
No
|
Unknown
|
No
|
Unknown
|
Plugin
|
Yes
|
| Smiley Packs |
No
|
Unknown
|
Plugin
|
Unknown
|
Plugin
|
Optional
|
| Plugins |
Yes
|
No
|
Yes
|
No
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
| Special Features | bttlxeForum | GroupServer | Phorum | idealBB | Vanilla | XMB |
| Statistics |
Yes
|
Yes
|
Plugin
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
| Polls |
Yes
|
Unknown
|
Plugin
|
Yes
|
Plugin
|
Yes
|
| Calendar |
No
|
Unknown
|
No
|
No
|
Plugin
|
Plugin
|
| Friendly URLs |
No
|
Unknown
|
Plugin
|
No
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
| Data Management | bttlxeForum | GroupServer | Phorum | idealBB | Vanilla | XMB |
| Available Importers |
All platforms use: https://open.vanillaforums.com/addon/porter-core
|
|||||
| Pruning |
Yes
|
Unknown
|
Yes
|
No
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
| Archiving |
No
|
Unknown
|
No
|
Unknown
|
Yes
|
No
|
| Export Formats |
None
|
XML, mbox
|
Proprietary or MySQLDump
|
|||
| Export private messages |
No
|
Yes
|
No
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
No
|
| Lo-Fi View |
No
|
Unknown
|
Optional
|
Unknown
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
| remove bttlxeForum | remove GroupServer | remove Phorum | remove idealBB | remove Vanilla | remove XMB |