MyBB vs. phpBB vs. Vanilla vs. vBulletin vs. Phorum

General MyBB phpBB Vanilla vBulletin Phorum
Version
1.6.3
3.0.8
2.6.4
4.1.5
5.2.9a
Release Date
2011-04-16 (12 years ago)
2010-11-19 (13 years ago)
2018-10-28 (5 years ago)
2011-07-26 (12 years ago)
2008-10-12 (15 years ago)
Last Update here
2011-06-22 (12 years ago)
2011-06-22 (12 years ago)
2018-11-01 (5 years ago)
2011-08-25 (12 years ago)
2008-10-16 (15 years ago)
Author
MyBB Group
The phpBB Group
Vanilla Forums Inc
vBulletin Solutions
Phorum Dev Team
URL
Free and Open Source
Yes
Yes
Yes
No
Yes
License
Custom
General Public License
GPL
commercial / visible source
The Phorum License (BSD)
License cost
US$0
0.00
0
$285 Suite or $195 Forum
0
Main View
Both, can be configured
Thread-Type
Threaded or Flat
Flat
Flat
Threaded or Flat
Threaded or Flat
Setup MyBB phpBB Vanilla vBulletin Phorum
Installation method
wizard
wizard
wizard
wizard
wizard
Upgrade method
wizard
wizard with manual interactions
manual
wizard with manual interactions
wizard
Hosting available
No
No
Yes
No
No
Technology MyBB phpBB Vanilla vBulletin 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
6
Firebird Database, Microsoft SQL Database, MySQL Database, Oracle 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 MyBB phpBB Vanilla vBulletin Phorum
BBCode
Yes
Yes
Plugin
Yes
Optional
HTML
Yes
No
Yes
Yes
Optional
Emoticons
Yes
Yes
Plugin
Yes
Optional
Formatting Toolbar
Yes
Yes
Plugin
Yes
Optional
WYSIWYG Editor
Plugin
No
Plugin
Yes
Plugin
Quoting
Nested
Nested
Single
Nested
Nested
Syntax Highlighting
Yes
Yes
Plugin
Yes
Plugin
Attachments
Multiple files
Multiple files
Multiple files
Multiple files
Multiple files
Tags
Unknown
Unknown
Yes
Unknown
Unknown
Mark as solved
A particular post can highlighted as accepted answer
Forums MyBB phpBB Vanilla vBulletin Phorum
Categories
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Subforums
unlimited
unlimited
unlimited
unlimited
multiple levels
Last Post
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Redirect Forums
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
No
Trashcan Forum
Plugin
No
Yes
Yes
No
Anti-Spam and Security MyBB phpBB Vanilla vBulletin Phorum
CAPTCHA
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Optional
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
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Warnings
Yes
Yes
Plugin
Yes
Plugin
Suspension
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Plugin
Bans
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
IP-Block
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Audit Logging
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Optional
User Reports
Yes
Yes
Plugin
Yes
Yes
Other
Akismet plugin available.
Plugin-based CAPTCHA system, Newly Registered Users permissions
Community Curation & SPAM removal
Akismet
Aksimet Plugin
Notification MyBB phpBB Vanilla vBulletin Phorum
RSS/ATOM
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
E-Mail
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Instant Messaging
Jabber
0
Bookmarks
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Community MyBB phpBB Vanilla vBulletin Phorum
Avatars
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Plugin
User Ranks
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Plugin
Rating/Karma System
Yes
Patch
Yes
Yes
Plugin
Signatures
Yes
Yes
Plugin
Yes
Yes
Users Online List
Yes
Yes
Plugin
Yes
Plugin
Private Messaging
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Custom profile fields
Yes
Yes
Plugin
Yes
Yes
Moderation MyBB phpBB Vanilla vBulletin Phorum
Moderators
global and forums
global and forums
global, forums and threads
global and forums
global and forums
Move Threads
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Split Threads
Yes
Yes
Plugin
Yes
Yes
Close Threads
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Shadow Topics
Yes
Yes
Plugin
Yes
Yes
Sticky Threads
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Important Threads
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Search MyBB phpBB Vanilla vBulletin Phorum
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 MyBB phpBB Vanilla vBulletin Phorum
Languages
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
Yes
Unknown
Unknown
Templates
global and forum specific
global and forum specific
global and forum specific
global and forum specific
global and forum specific
Custom BBCodes
Yes
Yes
Plugin
Yes
Plugin
Skin-Editor
Yes
Yes
Plugin
Yes
No
Smiley Packs
Yes
Yes
Plugin
Yes
Plugin
Plugins
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Special Features MyBB phpBB Vanilla vBulletin Phorum
Statistics
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Plugin
Polls
Yes
Yes
Plugin
Yes
Plugin
Calendar
Yes
No
Plugin
Yes
No
Friendly URLs
Plugin
Plugin
Yes
Yes
Plugin
Data Management MyBB phpBB Vanilla vBulletin Phorum
Available Importers
All platforms use: https://open.vanillaforums.com/addon/porter-core
Pruning
Plugin
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Archiving
No
No
Yes
Yes
No
Export Formats
SQL Dumps in .sql, sql.gz, and .sql.bz2
Proprietary or MySQLDump
Single Table CSV, Single and Multi-Table SQL
Export private messages
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
No
Lo-Fi View
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Optional
remove MyBB remove phpBB remove Vanilla remove vBulletin remove Phorum