phpBB vs. SMF vs. XMB vs. Phorum vs. Vanilla

General phpBB SMF XMB Phorum Vanilla
Version
3.0.8
2.0.6
1.9.11
5.2.9a
2.6.4
Release Date
2010-11-19 (13 years ago)
2013-10-21 (10 years ago)
Febuary 28, 2009
2008-10-12 (15 years ago)
2018-10-28 (5 years ago)
Last Update here
2011-06-22 (12 years ago)
2013-10-25 (10 years ago)
2012-03-02 (12 years ago)
2008-10-16 (15 years ago)
2018-11-01 (5 years ago)
Author
The phpBB Group
Simple Machines
The XMB Group
Phorum Dev Team
Vanilla Forums Inc
URL
Free and Open Source
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
License
General Public License
BSD
General Public License
The Phorum License (BSD)
GPL
License cost
0.00
0
0.00
0
0
Main View
Both, can be configured
Thread-Type
Flat
Flat
Flat
Threaded or Flat
Flat
Setup phpBB SMF XMB Phorum Vanilla
Installation method
wizard
wizard
wizard
wizard
wizard
Upgrade method
wizard with manual interactions
wizard
wizard
wizard
manual
Hosting available
No
No
No
No
Yes
Technology phpBB SMF XMB Phorum Vanilla
Programming Language
PHP
PHP
php
PHP
PHP
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
1
MySQL Database
2
MySQL Database, PostgreSQL Database
1
MySQL Database
Other Storage
Source Code Repo
Issue Tracker
Posts phpBB SMF XMB Phorum Vanilla
BBCode
Yes
Yes
Yes
Optional
Plugin
HTML
No
Yes
Optional
Optional
Yes
Emoticons
Yes
Yes
Yes
Optional
Plugin
Formatting Toolbar
Yes
Yes
Yes
Optional
Plugin
WYSIWYG Editor
No
Yes
No
Plugin
Plugin
Quoting
Nested
Nested
Nested
Nested
Single
Syntax Highlighting
Yes
Yes
No
Plugin
Plugin
Attachments
Multiple files
Multiple files
Multiple files
Multiple files
Multiple files
Tags
Unknown
Unknown
Unknown
Unknown
Yes
Mark as solved
A particular post can highlighted as accepted answer
Forums phpBB SMF XMB Phorum Vanilla
Categories
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Subforums
unlimited
unlimited
one level
multiple levels
unlimited
Last Post
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Redirect Forums
Yes
Yes
No
No
Yes
Trashcan Forum
No
Yes
No
No
Yes
Anti-Spam and Security phpBB SMF XMB Phorum Vanilla
CAPTCHA
Yes
Yes
Yes
Optional
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
Plugin
Plugin
Plugin
Suspension
Yes
Yes
Plugin
Plugin
Yes
Bans
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
IP-Block
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Audit Logging
Yes
Yes
Yes
Optional
Yes
User Reports
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Plugin
Other
Plugin-based CAPTCHA system, Newly Registered Users permissions
An Akismet mod is available
Aksimet Plugin
Community Curation & SPAM removal
Notification phpBB SMF XMB Phorum Vanilla
RSS/ATOM
Yes
Yes
Plugin
Yes
Yes
E-Mail
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Instant Messaging
Jabber
0
Bookmarks
Yes
Plugin
Yes
Yes
Yes
Community phpBB SMF XMB Phorum Vanilla
Avatars
Yes
Yes
Yes
Plugin
Yes
User Ranks
Yes
Yes
Yes
Plugin
Yes
Rating/Karma System
Patch
Yes
Plugin
Plugin
Yes
Signatures
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Plugin
Users Online List
Yes
Yes
Yes
Plugin
Plugin
Private Messaging
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Custom profile fields
Yes
Yes
Plugin
Yes
Plugin
Moderation phpBB SMF XMB Phorum Vanilla
Moderators
global and forums
global, forums and threads
global and forums
global and forums
global, forums and threads
Move Threads
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Split Threads
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Plugin
Close Threads
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Shadow Topics
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Plugin
Sticky Threads
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Important Threads
Yes
Plugin
Yes
Yes
Yes
Search phpBB SMF XMB Phorum Vanilla
Full-text search
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Author search
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Advanced search
Yes
Yes
No
Yes
Yes
Unread Topics
Database tracked
Database tracked
Session tracked
Database tracked
Database tracked
Customization phpBB SMF XMB Phorum Vanilla
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
Mobile View
Unknown
Unknown
Unknown
Unknown
Yes
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
Plugin
Plugin
Plugin
Skin-Editor
Yes
Yes
Yes
No
Plugin
Smiley Packs
Yes
Yes
Optional
Plugin
Plugin
Plugins
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Special Features phpBB SMF XMB Phorum Vanilla
Statistics
Yes
Yes
Yes
Plugin
Yes
Polls
Yes
Yes
Yes
Plugin
Plugin
Calendar
No
Yes
Plugin
No
Plugin
Friendly URLs
Plugin
Plugin
Yes
Plugin
Yes
Data Management phpBB SMF XMB Phorum Vanilla
Available Importers
All platforms use: https://open.vanillaforums.com/addon/porter-core
Pruning
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Archiving
No
Plugin
No
No
Yes
Export Formats
SQL Dumps in .sql, sql.gz, and .sql.bz2
WAP(2), IMode
Proprietary or MySQLDump
Export private messages
Yes
Plugin
No
No
Yes
Lo-Fi View
Yes
Yes
Yes
Optional
Yes
remove phpBB remove SMF remove XMB remove Phorum remove Vanilla