GroupServer vs. phpBB vs. MyBB vs. Beehive Forum vs. Vanilla vs. JForum

General GroupServer phpBB MyBB Beehive Forum Vanilla JForum
Version
1.0β
3.0.8
1.6.3
1.4.7
2.6.4
2.1.8
Release Date
2010 June 16
2010-11-19 (13 years ago)
2011-04-16 (12 years ago)
2015-06-03 (8 years ago)
2018-10-28 (5 years ago)
2008-10-31 (15 years ago)
Last Update here
2010-06-21 (13 years ago)
2011-06-22 (12 years ago)
2011-06-22 (12 years ago)
2016-02-08 (8 years ago)
2018-11-01 (5 years ago)
2008-01-02 (16 years ago)
Author
OnlineGroups.Net
The phpBB Group
MyBB Group
Matt Beale, Mark Rendle
Vanilla Forums Inc
Rafael Steil
URL
Free and Open Source
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
License
GPL
General Public License
Custom
GPL
GPL
BSD
License cost
$0
0.00
US$0
0
0
0
Main View
Both, can be configured
Thread-Type
Flat
Flat
Threaded or Flat
Threaded or Flat
Flat
Flat
Setup GroupServer phpBB MyBB Beehive Forum Vanilla JForum
Installation method
manual
wizard
wizard
wizard
wizard
wizard
Upgrade method
manual
wizard with manual interactions
wizard
wizard
manual
manual
Hosting available
Yes
No
No
Yes
Yes
No
Technology GroupServer phpBB MyBB Beehive Forum Vanilla JForum
Programming Language
Python & Zope
PHP
PHP
PHP
PHP
Java
UTF-8 Support
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Data Storage
1
PostgreSQL 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
1
MySQL Database
3
MySQL Database, Oracle Database, PostgreSQL Database
Other Storage
Zope Object Database
HSQLDB
Source Code Repo
Issue Tracker
Posts GroupServer phpBB MyBB Beehive Forum Vanilla JForum
BBCode
No
Yes
Yes
No
Plugin
Yes
HTML
No
No
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Emoticons
No
Yes
Yes
Yes
Plugin
Yes
Formatting Toolbar
No
Yes
Yes
Yes
Plugin
No
WYSIWYG Editor
No
No
Plugin
Yes
Plugin
No
Quoting
None
Nested
Nested
Nested
Single
Nested
Syntax Highlighting
No
Yes
Yes
Yes
Plugin
No
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
Forums GroupServer phpBB MyBB Beehive Forum Vanilla JForum
Categories
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Subforums
No
unlimited
unlimited
unlimited
No
Last Post
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Redirect Forums
No
Yes
Yes
No
Yes
No
Trashcan Forum
No
No
Plugin
Optional
Yes
No
Anti-Spam and Security GroupServer phpBB MyBB Beehive Forum Vanilla JForum
CAPTCHA
No
Yes
Yes
Optional
Yes
Yes
Groups
Multiple groups
Multiple groups
Multiple groups
Multiple groups
Multiple groups
Multiple groups
Flood Control
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
ACLs
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Blacklist
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
No
Warnings
No
Yes
Yes
Unknown
Plugin
No
Suspension
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Bans
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
IP-Block
No
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Audit Logging
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Unknown
User Reports
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Plugin
No
Other
Spam Assasin is used for email spam control.
Plugin-based CAPTCHA system, Newly Registered Users permissions
Akismet plugin available.
Worming, Pilllorying
Community Curation & SPAM removal
Notification GroupServer phpBB MyBB Beehive Forum Vanilla JForum
RSS/ATOM
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
E-Mail
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Instant Messaging
Integrated Chat
Jabber
Yes
0
Bookmarks
No
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Community GroupServer phpBB MyBB Beehive Forum Vanilla JForum
Avatars
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
User Ranks
No
Yes
Yes
No
Yes
Yes
Rating/Karma System
No
Patch
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Signatures
No
Yes
Yes
Yes
Plugin
Yes
Users Online List
No
Yes
Yes
Yes
Plugin
Yes
Private Messaging
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Custom profile fields
No
Yes
Yes
Optional
Plugin
No
Moderation GroupServer phpBB MyBB Beehive Forum Vanilla JForum
Moderators
global and forums
global and forums
global and forums
global, forums and threads
global, forums and threads
global and forums
Move Threads
Unknown
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Split Threads
Unknown
Yes
Yes
Yes
Plugin
No
Close Threads
Unknown
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Shadow Topics
Unknown
Yes
Yes
No
Plugin
Yes
Sticky Threads
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Important Threads
Unknown
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Search GroupServer phpBB MyBB Beehive Forum Vanilla JForum
Full-text search
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Author search
Unknown
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Advanced search
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Unread Topics
Database tracked
Database tracked
Database tracked
Database tracked
Database tracked
Customization GroupServer phpBB MyBB Beehive Forum Vanilla JForum
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
global and forum specific
global and forum specific
CSS only
global and forum specific
global
Custom BBCodes
Unknown
Yes
Yes
No
Plugin
Yes
Skin-Editor
Unknown
Yes
Yes
Yes
Plugin
No
Smiley Packs
Unknown
Yes
Yes
Yes
Plugin
Yes
Plugins
No
Yes
Yes
No
Yes
Yes
Special Features GroupServer phpBB MyBB Beehive Forum Vanilla JForum
Statistics
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Polls
Unknown
Yes
Yes
Yes
Plugin
Yes
Calendar
Unknown
No
Yes
No
Plugin
No
Friendly URLs
Unknown
Plugin
Plugin
No
Yes
Yes
Data Management GroupServer phpBB MyBB Beehive Forum Vanilla JForum
Available Importers
All platforms use: https://open.vanillaforums.com/addon/porter-core
Pruning
Unknown
Yes
Plugin
No
Yes
No
Archiving
Unknown
No
No
Unknown
Yes
No
Export Formats
XML, mbox
SQL Dumps in .sql, sql.gz, and .sql.bz2
Proprietary or MySQLDump
Export private messages
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
No
Lo-Fi View
Unknown
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
No
remove GroupServer remove phpBB remove MyBB remove Beehive Forum remove Vanilla remove JForum