Phorum vs. phpBB vs. XMB vs. Vanilla vs. EvilBoard

General Phorum phpBB XMB Vanilla EvilBoard
Version
5.2.9a
3.0.8
1.9.11
2.6.4
0.1a
Release Date
2008-10-12 (15 years ago)
2010-11-19 (13 years ago)
Febuary 28, 2009
2018-10-28 (5 years ago)
2006-10-02 (17 years ago)
Last Update here
2008-10-16 (15 years ago)
2011-06-22 (12 years ago)
2012-03-02 (12 years ago)
2018-11-01 (5 years ago)
2008-01-21 (16 years ago)
Author
Phorum Dev Team
The phpBB Group
The XMB Group
Vanilla Forums Inc
Arne-Christian Blystad
URL
Free and Open Source
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
License
The Phorum License (BSD)
General Public License
General Public License
GPL
LGPL
License cost
0
0.00
0.00
0
Main View
Both, can be configured
Thread-Type
Threaded or Flat
Flat
Flat
Flat
Flat
Setup Phorum phpBB XMB Vanilla EvilBoard
Installation method
wizard
wizard
wizard
wizard
Upgrade method
wizard
wizard with manual interactions
wizard
manual
Hosting available
No
No
No
Yes
No
Technology Phorum phpBB XMB Vanilla EvilBoard
Programming Language
PHP
PHP
php
PHP
PHP
UTF-8 Support
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Data Storage
2
MySQL Database, PostgreSQL Database
6
Firebird Database, Microsoft SQL Database, MySQL Database, Oracle Database, PostgreSQL Database, SQLite File Database
1
MySQL Database
1
MySQL Database
1
MySQL Database
Other Storage
Source Code Repo
Issue Tracker
Posts Phorum phpBB XMB Vanilla EvilBoard
BBCode
Optional
Yes
Yes
Plugin
No
HTML
Optional
No
Optional
Yes
No
Emoticons
Optional
Yes
Yes
Plugin
Yes
Formatting Toolbar
Optional
Yes
Yes
Plugin
Yes
WYSIWYG Editor
Plugin
No
No
Plugin
Yes
Quoting
Nested
Nested
Nested
Single
None
Syntax Highlighting
Plugin
Yes
No
Plugin
No
Attachments
Multiple files
Multiple files
Multiple files
Multiple files
No
Tags
Unknown
Unknown
Unknown
Yes
Unknown
Mark as solved
A particular post can highlighted as accepted answer
Forums Phorum phpBB XMB Vanilla EvilBoard
Categories
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Subforums
multiple levels
unlimited
one level
unlimited
No
Last Post
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
No
Redirect Forums
No
Yes
No
Yes
No
Trashcan Forum
No
No
No
Yes
No
Anti-Spam and Security Phorum phpBB XMB Vanilla EvilBoard
CAPTCHA
Optional
Yes
Yes
Yes
No
Groups
Multiple groups
Multiple groups
Multiple groups
Multiple groups
Multiple groups
Flood Control
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
No
ACLs
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
No
Blacklist
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
No
Warnings
Plugin
Yes
Plugin
Plugin
No
Suspension
Plugin
Yes
Plugin
Yes
No
Bans
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
IP-Block
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Audit Logging
Optional
Yes
Yes
Yes
Unknown
User Reports
Yes
Yes
Yes
Plugin
Unknown
Other
Aksimet Plugin
Plugin-based CAPTCHA system, Newly Registered Users permissions
Community Curation & SPAM removal
Notification Phorum phpBB XMB Vanilla EvilBoard
RSS/ATOM
Yes
Yes
Plugin
Yes
No
E-Mail
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
No
Instant Messaging
0
Jabber
Bookmarks
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
No
Community Phorum phpBB XMB Vanilla EvilBoard
Avatars
Plugin
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
User Ranks
Plugin
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Rating/Karma System
Plugin
Patch
Plugin
Yes
No
Signatures
Yes
Yes
Yes
Plugin
Yes
Users Online List
Plugin
Yes
Yes
Plugin
No
Private Messaging
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Custom profile fields
Yes
Yes
Plugin
Plugin
No
Moderation Phorum phpBB XMB Vanilla EvilBoard
Moderators
global and forums
global and forums
global and forums
global, forums and threads
global and forums
Move Threads
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
No
Split Threads
Yes
Yes
Yes
Plugin
No
Close Threads
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
No
Shadow Topics
Yes
Yes
Yes
Plugin
No
Sticky Threads
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
No
Important Threads
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Search Phorum phpBB XMB Vanilla EvilBoard
Full-text search
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
No
Author search
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
No
Advanced search
Yes
Yes
No
Yes
No
Unread Topics
Database tracked
Database tracked
Session tracked
Database tracked
Customization Phorum phpBB XMB Vanilla EvilBoard
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 and forum specific
global and forum specific
global and forum specific
global and forum specific
None
Custom BBCodes
Plugin
Yes
Plugin
Plugin
No
Skin-Editor
No
Yes
Yes
Plugin
No
Smiley Packs
Plugin
Yes
Optional
Plugin
Yes
Plugins
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Special Features Phorum phpBB XMB Vanilla EvilBoard
Statistics
Plugin
Yes
Yes
Yes
No
Polls
Plugin
Yes
Yes
Plugin
No
Calendar
No
No
Plugin
Plugin
No
Friendly URLs
Plugin
Plugin
Yes
Yes
No
Data Management Phorum phpBB XMB Vanilla EvilBoard
Available Importers
All platforms use: https://open.vanillaforums.com/addon/porter-core
Pruning
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
No
Archiving
No
No
No
Yes
No
Export Formats
SQL Dumps in .sql, sql.gz, and .sql.bz2
Proprietary or MySQLDump
Export private messages
No
Yes
No
Yes
No
Lo-Fi View
Optional
Yes
Yes
Yes
No
remove Phorum remove phpBB remove XMB remove Vanilla remove EvilBoard