JForum vs. phpBB vs. MyBB vs. Vanilla vs. SMF

General JForum phpBB MyBB Vanilla SMF
Version
2.1.8
3.0.8
1.6.3
2.6.4
2.0.6
Release Date
2008-10-31 (15 years ago)
2010-11-19 (13 years ago)
2011-04-16 (12 years ago)
2018-10-28 (5 years ago)
2013-10-21 (10 years ago)
Last Update here
2008-01-02 (16 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)
Author
Rafael Steil
The phpBB Group
MyBB Group
Vanilla Forums Inc
Simple Machines
URL
Free and Open Source
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
License
BSD
General Public License
Custom
GPL
BSD
License cost
0
0.00
US$0
0
0
Main View
Both, can be configured
Thread-Type
Flat
Flat
Threaded or Flat
Flat
Flat
Setup JForum phpBB MyBB Vanilla SMF
Installation method
wizard
wizard
wizard
wizard
wizard
Upgrade method
manual
wizard with manual interactions
wizard
manual
wizard
Hosting available
No
No
No
Yes
No
Technology JForum phpBB MyBB Vanilla SMF
Programming Language
Java
PHP
PHP
PHP
PHP
UTF-8 Support
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Data Storage
3
MySQL Database, Oracle Database, 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
3
MySQL Database, PostgreSQL Database, SQLite File Database
Other Storage
HSQLDB
Source Code Repo
Issue Tracker
Posts JForum phpBB MyBB Vanilla SMF
BBCode
Yes
Yes
Yes
Plugin
Yes
HTML
Yes
No
Yes
Yes
Yes
Emoticons
Yes
Yes
Yes
Plugin
Yes
Formatting Toolbar
No
Yes
Yes
Plugin
Yes
WYSIWYG Editor
No
No
Plugin
Plugin
Yes
Quoting
Nested
Nested
Nested
Single
Nested
Syntax Highlighting
No
Yes
Yes
Plugin
Yes
Attachments
Multiple files
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 JForum phpBB MyBB Vanilla SMF
Categories
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Subforums
No
unlimited
unlimited
unlimited
unlimited
Last Post
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Redirect Forums
No
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Trashcan Forum
No
No
Plugin
Yes
Yes
Anti-Spam and Security JForum phpBB MyBB Vanilla SMF
CAPTCHA
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Groups
Multiple groups
Multiple groups
Multiple groups
Multiple groups
Multiple groups
Flood Control
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
ACLs
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Blacklist
No
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Warnings
No
Yes
Yes
Plugin
Yes
Suspension
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Bans
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
IP-Block
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Audit Logging
Unknown
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
User Reports
No
Yes
Yes
Plugin
Yes
Other
Plugin-based CAPTCHA system, Newly Registered Users permissions
Akismet plugin available.
Community Curation & SPAM removal
An Akismet mod is available
Notification JForum phpBB MyBB Vanilla SMF
RSS/ATOM
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
E-Mail
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Instant Messaging
0
Jabber
Bookmarks
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Plugin
Community JForum phpBB MyBB Vanilla SMF
Avatars
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
User Ranks
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Rating/Karma System
Yes
Patch
Yes
Yes
Yes
Signatures
Yes
Yes
Yes
Plugin
Yes
Users Online List
Yes
Yes
Yes
Plugin
Yes
Private Messaging
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Custom profile fields
No
Yes
Yes
Plugin
Yes
Moderation JForum phpBB MyBB Vanilla SMF
Moderators
global and forums
global and forums
global and forums
global, forums and threads
global, forums and threads
Move Threads
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Split Threads
No
Yes
Yes
Plugin
Yes
Close Threads
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Shadow Topics
Yes
Yes
Yes
Plugin
Yes
Sticky Threads
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Important Threads
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Plugin
Search JForum phpBB MyBB Vanilla SMF
Full-text search
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Author search
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Advanced search
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Unread Topics
Database tracked
Database tracked
Database tracked
Database tracked
Database tracked
Customization JForum phpBB MyBB Vanilla SMF
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
global
global and forum specific
global and forum specific
global and forum specific
global and forum specific
Custom BBCodes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Plugin
Plugin
Skin-Editor
No
Yes
Yes
Plugin
Yes
Smiley Packs
Yes
Yes
Yes
Plugin
Yes
Plugins
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Special Features JForum phpBB MyBB Vanilla SMF
Statistics
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Polls
Yes
Yes
Yes
Plugin
Yes
Calendar
No
No
Yes
Plugin
Yes
Friendly URLs
Yes
Plugin
Plugin
Yes
Plugin
Data Management JForum phpBB MyBB Vanilla SMF
Available Importers
All platforms use: https://open.vanillaforums.com/addon/porter-core
Pruning
No
Yes
Plugin
Yes
Yes
Archiving
No
No
No
Yes
Plugin
Export Formats
SQL Dumps in .sql, sql.gz, and .sql.bz2
Proprietary or MySQLDump
WAP(2), IMode
Export private messages
No
Yes
Yes
Yes
Plugin
Lo-Fi View
No
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
remove JForum remove phpBB remove MyBB remove Vanilla remove SMF