| General | miniBB | phpBB | SMF | MyBB | Vanilla | GroupServer |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Version |
2.4
|
3.0.8
|
2.0.6
|
1.6.3
|
2.6.4
|
1.0β
|
| Release Date |
2008-08-17 (15 years ago)
|
2010-11-19 (13 years ago)
|
2013-10-21 (10 years ago)
|
2011-04-16 (13 years ago)
|
2018-10-28 (5 years ago)
|
2010 June 16
|
| Last Update here |
2009-09-02 (14 years ago)
|
2011-06-22 (12 years ago)
|
2013-10-25 (10 years ago)
|
2011-06-22 (12 years ago)
|
2018-11-01 (5 years ago)
|
2010-06-21 (13 years ago)
|
| Author |
miniBB Team
|
The phpBB Group
|
Simple Machines
|
MyBB Group
|
Vanilla Forums Inc
|
OnlineGroups.Net
|
| URL | ||||||
| Free and Open Source |
Yes
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
| License |
GPL
|
General Public License
|
BSD
|
Custom
|
GPL
|
GPL
|
| License cost |
Free
|
0.00
|
0
|
US$0
|
0
|
$0
|
| Main View |
Both, can be configured
|
|||||
| Thread-Type |
Flat
|
Flat
|
Flat
|
Threaded or Flat
|
Flat
|
Flat
|
| Setup | miniBB | phpBB | SMF | MyBB | Vanilla | GroupServer |
| Installation method |
wizard
|
wizard
|
wizard
|
wizard
|
wizard
|
manual
|
| Upgrade method |
manual
|
wizard with manual interactions
|
wizard
|
wizard
|
manual
|
manual
|
| Hosting available |
No
|
No
|
No
|
No
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
| Technology | miniBB | phpBB | SMF | MyBB | Vanilla | GroupServer |
| Programming Language |
PHP
|
PHP
|
PHP
|
PHP
|
PHP
|
Python & Zope
|
| UTF-8 Support |
Yes
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
| Data Storage |
1
MySQL Database |
6
Firebird Database, Microsoft SQL Database, MySQL Database, Oracle Database, PostgreSQL Database, SQLite File Database |
3
MySQL Database, PostgreSQL Database, SQLite File Database |
3
MySQL Database, PostgreSQL Database, SQLite File Database |
1
MySQL Database |
1
PostgreSQL Database |
| Other Storage |
Zope Object Database
|
|||||
| Source Code Repo | ||||||
| Issue Tracker | ||||||
| Posts | miniBB | phpBB | SMF | MyBB | Vanilla | GroupServer |
| BBCode |
Yes
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
Plugin
|
No
|
| HTML |
Optional
|
No
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
No
|
| Emoticons |
Plugin
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
Plugin
|
No
|
| Formatting Toolbar |
Plugin
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
Plugin
|
No
|
| WYSIWYG Editor |
Plugin
|
No
|
Yes
|
Plugin
|
Plugin
|
No
|
| Quoting |
Single
|
Nested
|
Nested
|
Nested
|
Single
|
None
|
| Syntax Highlighting |
Yes
|
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 | miniBB | phpBB | SMF | MyBB | Vanilla | GroupServer |
| Categories |
Yes
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
| Subforums |
one level
|
unlimited
|
unlimited
|
unlimited
|
unlimited
|
No
|
| Last Post |
Yes
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
| Redirect Forums |
No
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
No
|
| Trashcan Forum |
Yes
|
No
|
Yes
|
Plugin
|
Yes
|
No
|
| Anti-Spam and Security | miniBB | phpBB | SMF | MyBB | Vanilla | GroupServer |
| CAPTCHA |
Plugin
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
No
|
| Groups |
No
|
Multiple groups
|
Multiple groups
|
Multiple groups
|
Multiple groups
|
Multiple groups
|
| Flood Control |
Plugin
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
| ACLs |
Plugin
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
| Blacklist |
Plugin
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
| Warnings |
Plugin
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
Plugin
|
No
|
| Suspension |
Yes
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
| Bans |
Yes
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
| IP-Block |
Yes
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
No
|
| Audit Logging |
Plugin
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
| User Reports |
No
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
Plugin
|
Yes
|
| Other |
Plugin-based CAPTCHA system, Newly Registered Users permissions
|
An Akismet mod is available
|
Akismet plugin available.
|
Community Curation & SPAM removal
|
Spam Assasin is used for email spam control.
|
|
| Notification | miniBB | phpBB | SMF | MyBB | Vanilla | GroupServer |
| RSS/ATOM |
Plugin
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
|
| Instant Messaging |
0
|
Jabber
|
Integrated Chat
|
|||
| Bookmarks |
Plugin
|
Yes
|
Plugin
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
No
|
| Community | miniBB | phpBB | SMF | MyBB | Vanilla | GroupServer |
| Avatars |
Plugin
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
| User Ranks |
Plugin
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
No
|
| Rating/Karma System |
Plugin
|
Patch
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
No
|
| Signatures |
Plugin
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
Plugin
|
No
|
| Users Online List |
Plugin
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
Plugin
|
No
|
| Private Messaging |
Plugin
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
| Custom profile fields |
Plugin
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
Plugin
|
No
|
| Moderation | miniBB | phpBB | SMF | MyBB | Vanilla | GroupServer |
| Moderators |
global and forums
|
global and forums
|
global, forums and threads
|
global and forums
|
global, forums and threads
|
global and forums
|
| Move Threads |
Yes
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
Unknown
|
| Split Threads |
Plugin
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
Plugin
|
Unknown
|
| Close Threads |
Yes
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
Unknown
|
| Shadow Topics |
Plugin
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
Plugin
|
Unknown
|
| Sticky Threads |
Yes
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
| Important Threads |
Plugin
|
Yes
|
Plugin
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
Unknown
|
| Search | miniBB | phpBB | SMF | MyBB | Vanilla | GroupServer |
| Full-text search |
Yes
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
| Author search |
Yes
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
Unknown
|
| Advanced search |
Yes
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
| Unread Topics |
Database tracked
|
Database tracked
|
Database tracked
|
Database tracked
|
Database tracked
|
|
| Customization | miniBB | phpBB | SMF | MyBB | Vanilla | GroupServer |
| 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
|
global and forum specific
|
global and forum specific
|
global and forum specific
|
global and forum specific
|
|
| Custom BBCodes |
Patch
|
Yes
|
Plugin
|
Yes
|
Plugin
|
Unknown
|
| Skin-Editor |
Plugin
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
Plugin
|
Unknown
|
| Smiley Packs |
Plugin
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
Plugin
|
Unknown
|
| Plugins |
Yes
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
No
|
| Special Features | miniBB | phpBB | SMF | MyBB | Vanilla | GroupServer |
| Statistics |
Yes
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
| Polls |
Plugin
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
Plugin
|
Unknown
|
| Calendar |
Plugin
|
No
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
Plugin
|
Unknown
|
| Friendly URLs |
Optional
|
Plugin
|
Plugin
|
Plugin
|
Yes
|
Unknown
|
| Data Management | miniBB | phpBB | SMF | MyBB | Vanilla | GroupServer |
| Available Importers |
All platforms use: https://open.vanillaforums.com/addon/porter-core
|
|||||
| Pruning |
Plugin
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
Plugin
|
Yes
|
Unknown
|
| Archiving |
Plugin
|
No
|
Plugin
|
No
|
Yes
|
Unknown
|
| Export Formats |
Users' logins/emails can be exported in CSV or TXT
|
SQL Dumps in .sql, sql.gz, and .sql.bz2
|
WAP(2), IMode
|
Proprietary or MySQLDump
|
XML, mbox
|
|
| Export private messages |
Plugin
|
Yes
|
Plugin
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
| Lo-Fi View |
Yes
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
Unknown
|
| remove miniBB | remove phpBB | remove SMF | remove MyBB | remove Vanilla | remove GroupServer |