FluxBB vs. phpBB vs. MyBB vs. Vanilla vs. SMF vs. bbPress

General FluxBB phpBB MyBB Vanilla SMF bbPress
Version
1.4.5
3.0.8
1.6.3
2.6.4
2.0.6
0.9.0.4
Release Date
22/03/2011
2010-11-19 (13 years ago)
2011-04-16 (12 years ago)
2018-10-28 (5 years ago)
2013-10-21 (10 years ago)
2009-01-02 (15 years ago)
Last Update here
2011-05-05 (12 years ago)
2011-06-22 (12 years ago)
2011-06-22 (12 years ago)
2018-11-01 (5 years ago)
2013-10-25 (10 years ago)
2009-03-11 (15 years ago)
Author
FluxBB development team
The phpBB Group
MyBB Group
Vanilla Forums Inc
Simple Machines
bbpress.org
URL
Free and Open Source
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
License
GPL v2
General Public License
Custom
GPL
BSD
GPL2
License cost
0
0.00
US$0
0
0
0
Main View
Both, can be configured
Thread-Type
Flat
Flat
Threaded or Flat
Flat
Flat
Flat
Setup FluxBB phpBB MyBB Vanilla SMF bbPress
Installation method
wizard
wizard
wizard
wizard
wizard
wizard
Upgrade method
wizard
wizard with manual interactions
wizard
manual
wizard
wizard
Hosting available
No
No
No
Yes
No
No
Technology FluxBB phpBB MyBB Vanilla SMF bbPress
Programming Language
PHP
PHP
PHP
PHP
PHP
PHP
UTF-8 Support
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Data Storage
3
MySQL Database, PostgreSQL Database, SQLite File Database
6
Firebird Database, Microsoft SQL Database, MySQL Database, Oracle Database, PostgreSQL Database, SQLite File Database
3
MySQL 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 FluxBB phpBB MyBB Vanilla SMF bbPress
BBCode
Yes
Yes
Yes
Plugin
Yes
Plugin
HTML
Patch
No
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Emoticons
Yes
Yes
Yes
Plugin
Yes
Plugin
Formatting Toolbar
Patch
Yes
Yes
Plugin
Yes
Plugin
WYSIWYG Editor
Patch
No
Plugin
Plugin
Yes
No
Quoting
Nested
Nested
Nested
Single
Nested
Nested
Syntax Highlighting
Patch
Yes
Yes
Plugin
Yes
Plugin
Attachments
No
Multiple files
Multiple files
Multiple files
Multiple files
Multiple files
Tags
Unknown
Unknown
Unknown
Yes
Unknown
Unknown
Mark as solved
A particular post can highlighted as accepted answer
Forums FluxBB phpBB MyBB Vanilla SMF bbPress
Categories
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Subforums
No
unlimited
unlimited
unlimited
unlimited
unlimited
Last Post
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Plugin
Redirect Forums
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Plugin
Trashcan Forum
No
No
Plugin
Yes
Yes
Yes
Anti-Spam and Security FluxBB phpBB MyBB Vanilla SMF bbPress
CAPTCHA
Patch
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Plugin
Groups
One group only
Multiple groups
Multiple groups
Multiple groups
Multiple groups
One group only
Flood Control
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
ACLs
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
No
Blacklist
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Plugin
Warnings
Patch
Yes
Yes
Plugin
Yes
Plugin
Suspension
No
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Plugin
Bans
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
IP-Block
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Plugin
Audit Logging
Patch
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Plugin
User Reports
Yes
Yes
Yes
Plugin
Yes
Plugin
Other
Plugin-based CAPTCHA system, Newly Registered Users permissions
Akismet plugin available.
Community Curation & SPAM removal
An Akismet mod is available
Notification FluxBB phpBB MyBB Vanilla SMF bbPress
RSS/ATOM
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
E-Mail
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Plugin
Instant Messaging
Jabber
Plugin
Bookmarks
No
Yes
Yes
Yes
Plugin
Yes
Community FluxBB phpBB MyBB Vanilla SMF bbPress
Avatars
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Plugin
User Ranks
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Plugin
Rating/Karma System
Patch
Patch
Yes
Yes
Yes
Plugin
Signatures
Yes
Yes
Yes
Plugin
Yes
Plugin
Users Online List
Yes
Yes
Yes
Plugin
Yes
Plugin
Private Messaging
Patch
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Plugin
Custom profile fields
Patch
Yes
Yes
Plugin
Yes
Plugin
Moderation FluxBB phpBB MyBB Vanilla SMF bbPress
Moderators
global and forums
global and forums
global and forums
global, forums and threads
global, forums and threads
global
Move Threads
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Split Threads
Yes
Yes
Yes
Plugin
Yes
Plugin
Close Threads
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Shadow Topics
Yes
Yes
Yes
Plugin
Yes
Unknown
Sticky Threads
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Important Threads
No
Yes
Yes
Yes
Plugin
Plugin
Search FluxBB phpBB MyBB Vanilla SMF bbPress
Full-text search
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Author search
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Advanced search
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Plugin
Unread Topics
Session tracked
Database tracked
Database tracked
Database tracked
Database tracked
Customization FluxBB phpBB MyBB Vanilla SMF bbPress
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
0
Mobile View
Unknown
Unknown
Unknown
Yes
Unknown
Unknown
Templates
CSS only
global and forum specific
global and forum specific
global and forum specific
global and forum specific
global
Custom BBCodes
Patch
Yes
Yes
Plugin
Plugin
Plugin
Skin-Editor
No
Yes
Yes
Plugin
Yes
No
Smiley Packs
Patch
Yes
Yes
Plugin
Yes
Plugin
Plugins
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Special Features FluxBB phpBB MyBB Vanilla SMF bbPress
Statistics
Plugin
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Polls
Patch
Yes
Yes
Plugin
Yes
Plugin
Calendar
Patch
No
Yes
Plugin
Yes
No
Friendly URLs
Patch
Plugin
Plugin
Yes
Plugin
Yes
Data Management FluxBB phpBB MyBB Vanilla SMF bbPress
Available Importers
All platforms use: https://open.vanillaforums.com/addon/porter-core
Pruning
Yes
Yes
Plugin
Yes
Yes
Plugin
Archiving
Patch
No
No
Yes
Plugin
Plugin
Export Formats
SQL Dumps in .sql, sql.gz, and .sql.bz2
Proprietary or MySQLDump
WAP(2), IMode
BBXF
Export private messages
No
Yes
Yes
Yes
Plugin
Plugin
Lo-Fi View
No
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Plugin
remove FluxBB remove phpBB remove MyBB remove Vanilla remove SMF remove bbPress