| General | phpBB | SMF | MyBB | Vanilla | Invision Power Board |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Version |
3.0.8
|
2.0.6
|
1.6.3
|
2.6.4
|
3.2.3
|
| Release Date |
2010-11-19 (12 years ago)
|
2013-10-21 (9 years ago)
|
2011-04-16 (12 years ago)
|
2018-10-28 (4 years ago)
|
2011-10-17 (11 years ago)
|
| Last Update here |
2011-06-22 (11 years ago)
|
2013-10-25 (9 years ago)
|
2011-06-22 (11 years ago)
|
2018-11-01 (4 years ago)
|
2012-02-07 (11 years ago)
|
| Author |
The phpBB Group
|
Simple Machines
|
MyBB Group
|
Vanilla Forums Inc
|
Invision Power Services
|
| URL | |||||
| Free and Open Source |
Yes
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
No
|
| License |
General Public License
|
BSD
|
Custom
|
GPL
|
Commercial
|
| License cost |
0.00
|
0
|
US$0
|
0
|
License from $175 / Hosted from $5 per month
|
| Main View |
Both, can be configured
|
||||
| Thread-Type |
Flat
|
Flat
|
Threaded or Flat
|
Flat
|
Flat
|
| Setup | phpBB | SMF | MyBB | Vanilla | Invision Power Board |
| Installation method |
wizard
|
wizard
|
wizard
|
wizard
|
wizard
|
| Upgrade method |
wizard with manual interactions
|
wizard
|
wizard
|
manual
|
wizard
|
| Hosting available |
No
|
No
|
No
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
| Technology | phpBB | SMF | MyBB | Vanilla | Invision Power Board |
| Programming Language |
PHP
|
PHP
|
PHP
|
PHP
|
PHP 5.2+
|
| UTF-8 Support |
Yes
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
| Data Storage |
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
MySQL Database |
| Other Storage | |||||
| Source Code Repo | |||||
| Issue Tracker | |||||
| Posts | phpBB | SMF | MyBB | Vanilla | Invision Power Board |
| BBCode |
Yes
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
Plugin
|
Yes
|
| HTML |
No
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
| Emoticons |
Yes
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
Plugin
|
Yes
|
| Formatting Toolbar |
Yes
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
Plugin
|
Yes
|
| WYSIWYG Editor |
No
|
Yes
|
Plugin
|
Plugin
|
Yes
|
| Quoting |
Nested
|
Nested
|
Nested
|
Single
|
Nested
|
| Syntax Highlighting |
Yes
|
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 | phpBB | SMF | MyBB | Vanilla | Invision Power Board |
| Categories |
Yes
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
| Subforums |
unlimited
|
unlimited
|
unlimited
|
unlimited
|
unlimited
|
| Last Post |
Yes
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
| Redirect Forums |
Yes
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
| Trashcan Forum |
No
|
Yes
|
Plugin
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
| Anti-Spam and Security | phpBB | SMF | MyBB | Vanilla | Invision Power Board |
| 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 |
Yes
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
| Warnings |
Yes
|
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 |
Yes
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
| User Reports |
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 Monitoring Service, Flag As Spammer, Question & Answer System
|
| Notification | phpBB | SMF | MyBB | Vanilla | Invision Power Board |
| RSS/ATOM |
Yes
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
|
| Instant Messaging |
Jabber
|
No
|
|||
| Bookmarks |
Yes
|
Plugin
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
| Community | phpBB | SMF | MyBB | Vanilla | Invision Power Board |
| Avatars |
Yes
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
| User Ranks |
Yes
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
| Rating/Karma System |
Patch
|
Yes
|
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 |
Yes
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
Plugin
|
Yes
|
| Moderation | phpBB | SMF | MyBB | Vanilla | Invision Power Board |
| Moderators |
global and forums
|
global, forums and threads
|
global and forums
|
global, forums and threads
|
global and forums
|
| Move Threads |
Yes
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
| Split Threads |
Yes
|
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
|
Plugin
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
| Search | phpBB | SMF | MyBB | Vanilla | Invision Power Board |
| 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 | phpBB | SMF | MyBB | Vanilla | Invision Power Board |
| 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
|
global and forum specific
|
| Custom BBCodes |
Yes
|
Plugin
|
Yes
|
Plugin
|
Yes
|
| Skin-Editor |
Yes
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
Plugin
|
Yes
|
| Smiley Packs |
Yes
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
Plugin
|
Yes
|
| Plugins |
Yes
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
| Special Features | phpBB | SMF | MyBB | Vanilla | Invision Power Board |
| Statistics |
Yes
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
| Polls |
Yes
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
Plugin
|
Yes
|
| Calendar |
No
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
Plugin
|
Yes
|
| Friendly URLs |
Plugin
|
Plugin
|
Plugin
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
| Data Management | phpBB | SMF | MyBB | Vanilla | Invision Power Board |
| Available Importers |
All platforms use: https://open.vanillaforums.com/addon/porter-core
|
||||
| Pruning |
Yes
|
Yes
|
Plugin
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
| Archiving |
No
|
Plugin
|
No
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
| Export Formats |
SQL Dumps in .sql, sql.gz, and .sql.bz2
|
WAP(2), IMode
|
Proprietary or MySQLDump
|
SQL
|
|
| Export private messages |
Yes
|
Plugin
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
| Lo-Fi View |
Yes
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
| remove phpBB | remove SMF | remove MyBB | remove Vanilla | remove Invision Power Board |