FluxBB vs. MyBB vs. bbPress vs. Vanilla vs. Phorum

General FluxBB MyBB bbPress Vanilla Phorum
Version
1.4.5
1.6.3
0.9.0.4
2.6.4
5.2.9a
Release Date
22/03/2011
2011-04-16 (12 years ago)
2009-01-02 (15 years ago)
2018-10-28 (5 years ago)
2008-10-12 (15 years ago)
Last Update here
2011-05-05 (12 years ago)
2011-06-22 (12 years ago)
2009-03-11 (15 years ago)
2018-11-01 (5 years ago)
2008-10-16 (15 years ago)
Author
FluxBB development team
MyBB Group
bbpress.org
Vanilla Forums Inc
Phorum Dev Team
URL
Free and Open Source
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
License
GPL v2
Custom
GPL2
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 FluxBB MyBB bbPress Vanilla Phorum
Installation method
wizard
wizard
wizard
wizard
wizard
Upgrade method
wizard
wizard
wizard
manual
wizard
Hosting available
No
No
No
Yes
No
Technology FluxBB MyBB bbPress Vanilla Phorum
Programming Language
PHP
PHP
PHP
PHP
PHP
UTF-8 Support
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Data Storage
3
MySQL Database, PostgreSQL Database, SQLite File Database
3
MySQL Database, PostgreSQL Database, SQLite File Database
1
MySQL Database
1
MySQL Database
2
MySQL Database, PostgreSQL Database
Other Storage
Source Code Repo
Issue Tracker
Posts FluxBB MyBB bbPress Vanilla Phorum
BBCode
Yes
Yes
Plugin
Plugin
Optional
HTML
Patch
Yes
Yes
Yes
Optional
Emoticons
Yes
Yes
Plugin
Plugin
Optional
Formatting Toolbar
Patch
Yes
Plugin
Plugin
Optional
WYSIWYG Editor
Patch
Plugin
No
Plugin
Plugin
Quoting
Nested
Nested
Nested
Single
Nested
Syntax Highlighting
Patch
Yes
Plugin
Plugin
Plugin
Attachments
No
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 FluxBB MyBB bbPress Vanilla Phorum
Categories
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Subforums
No
unlimited
unlimited
unlimited
multiple levels
Last Post
Yes
Yes
Plugin
Yes
Yes
Redirect Forums
Yes
Yes
Plugin
Yes
No
Trashcan Forum
No
Plugin
Yes
Yes
No
Anti-Spam and Security FluxBB MyBB bbPress Vanilla Phorum
CAPTCHA
Patch
Yes
Plugin
Yes
Optional
Groups
One group only
Multiple groups
One group only
Multiple groups
Multiple groups
Flood Control
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
ACLs
Yes
Yes
No
Yes
Yes
Blacklist
Yes
Yes
Plugin
Yes
Yes
Warnings
Patch
Yes
Plugin
Plugin
Plugin
Suspension
No
Yes
Plugin
Yes
Plugin
Bans
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
IP-Block
Yes
Yes
Plugin
Yes
Yes
Audit Logging
Patch
Yes
Plugin
Yes
Optional
User Reports
Yes
Yes
Plugin
Plugin
Yes
Other
Akismet plugin available.
Community Curation & SPAM removal
Aksimet Plugin
Notification FluxBB MyBB bbPress Vanilla Phorum
RSS/ATOM
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
E-Mail
Yes
Yes
Plugin
Yes
Yes
Instant Messaging
Plugin
0
Bookmarks
No
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Community FluxBB MyBB bbPress Vanilla Phorum
Avatars
Yes
Yes
Plugin
Yes
Plugin
User Ranks
Yes
Yes
Plugin
Yes
Plugin
Rating/Karma System
Patch
Yes
Plugin
Yes
Plugin
Signatures
Yes
Yes
Plugin
Plugin
Yes
Users Online List
Yes
Yes
Plugin
Plugin
Plugin
Private Messaging
Patch
Yes
Plugin
Yes
Yes
Custom profile fields
Patch
Yes
Plugin
Plugin
Yes
Moderation FluxBB MyBB bbPress Vanilla Phorum
Moderators
global and forums
global and forums
global
global, forums and threads
global and forums
Move Threads
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Split Threads
Yes
Yes
Plugin
Plugin
Yes
Close Threads
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Shadow Topics
Yes
Yes
Unknown
Plugin
Yes
Sticky Threads
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Important Threads
No
Yes
Plugin
Yes
Yes
Search FluxBB MyBB bbPress Vanilla Phorum
Full-text search
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Author search
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Advanced search
Yes
Yes
Plugin
Yes
Yes
Unread Topics
Session tracked
Database tracked
Database tracked
Database tracked
Customization FluxBB MyBB bbPress 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
CSS only
global and forum specific
global
global and forum specific
global and forum specific
Custom BBCodes
Patch
Yes
Plugin
Plugin
Plugin
Skin-Editor
No
Yes
No
Plugin
No
Smiley Packs
Patch
Yes
Plugin
Plugin
Plugin
Plugins
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Special Features FluxBB MyBB bbPress Vanilla Phorum
Statistics
Plugin
Yes
Yes
Yes
Plugin
Polls
Patch
Yes
Plugin
Plugin
Plugin
Calendar
Patch
Yes
No
Plugin
No
Friendly URLs
Patch
Plugin
Yes
Yes
Plugin
Data Management FluxBB MyBB bbPress Vanilla Phorum
Available Importers
All platforms use: https://open.vanillaforums.com/addon/porter-core
Pruning
Yes
Plugin
Plugin
Yes
Yes
Archiving
Patch
No
Plugin
Yes
No
Export Formats
BBXF
Proprietary or MySQLDump
Export private messages
No
Yes
Plugin
Yes
No
Lo-Fi View
No
Yes
Plugin
Yes
Optional
remove FluxBB remove MyBB remove bbPress remove Vanilla remove Phorum