UBB.threads vs. MyBB vs. bbPress vs. Vanilla vs. SMF vs. phpBB

General UBB.threads MyBB bbPress Vanilla SMF phpBB
Version
7.5.4.2
1.6.3
0.9.0.4
2.6.4
2.0.6
3.0.8
Release Date
2011-04-16 (13 years ago)
2009-01-02 (15 years ago)
2018-10-28 (5 years ago)
2013-10-21 (10 years ago)
2010-11-19 (13 years ago)
Last Update here
2010-02-04 (14 years ago)
2011-06-22 (12 years ago)
2009-03-11 (15 years ago)
2018-11-01 (5 years ago)
2013-10-25 (10 years ago)
2011-06-22 (12 years ago)
Author
Mindraven
MyBB Group
bbpress.org
Vanilla Forums Inc
Simple Machines
The phpBB Group
URL
Free and Open Source
No
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
License
Commercial
Custom
GPL2
GPL
BSD
General Public License
License cost
$139
US$0
0
0
0
0.00
Main View
Both, can be configured
Thread-Type
Threaded or Flat
Threaded or Flat
Flat
Flat
Flat
Flat
Setup UBB.threads MyBB bbPress Vanilla SMF phpBB
Installation method
wizard
wizard
wizard
wizard
wizard
wizard
Upgrade method
wizard with manual interactions
wizard
wizard
manual
wizard
wizard with manual interactions
Hosting available
No
No
No
Yes
No
No
Technology UBB.threads MyBB bbPress Vanilla SMF phpBB
Programming Language
PHP
PHP
PHP
PHP
PHP
PHP
UTF-8 Support
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Data Storage
1
MySQL Database
3
MySQL Database, PostgreSQL Database, SQLite File Database
1
MySQL Database
1
MySQL Database
3
MySQL Database, PostgreSQL Database, SQLite File Database
6
Firebird Database, Microsoft SQL Database, MySQL Database, Oracle Database, PostgreSQL Database, SQLite File Database
Other Storage
Source Code Repo
Issue Tracker
Posts UBB.threads MyBB bbPress Vanilla SMF phpBB
BBCode
Yes
Yes
Plugin
Plugin
Yes
Yes
HTML
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
No
Emoticons
Yes
Yes
Plugin
Plugin
Yes
Yes
Formatting Toolbar
Yes
Yes
Plugin
Plugin
Yes
Yes
WYSIWYG Editor
No
Plugin
No
Plugin
Yes
No
Quoting
Nested
Nested
Nested
Single
Nested
Nested
Syntax Highlighting
Yes
Yes
Plugin
Plugin
Yes
Yes
Attachments
Multiple files
Multiple files
Multiple files
Multiple files
Multiple files
Multiple files
Tags
Unknown
Unknown
Unknown
Yes
Unknown
Unknown
Mark as solved
A particular post can highlighted as accepted answer
Forums UBB.threads MyBB bbPress Vanilla SMF phpBB
Categories
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Subforums
unlimited
unlimited
unlimited
unlimited
unlimited
unlimited
Last Post
Yes
Yes
Plugin
Yes
Yes
Yes
Redirect Forums
No
Yes
Plugin
Yes
Yes
Yes
Trashcan Forum
No
Plugin
Yes
Yes
Yes
No
Anti-Spam and Security UBB.threads MyBB bbPress Vanilla SMF phpBB
CAPTCHA
Yes
Yes
Plugin
Yes
Yes
Yes
Groups
Multiple groups
Multiple groups
One group only
Multiple groups
Multiple groups
Multiple groups
Flood Control
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
ACLs
Yes
Yes
No
Yes
Yes
Yes
Blacklist
Yes
Yes
Plugin
Yes
Yes
Yes
Warnings
No
Yes
Plugin
Plugin
Yes
Yes
Suspension
Yes
Yes
Plugin
Yes
Yes
Yes
Bans
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
IP-Block
Yes
Yes
Plugin
Yes
Yes
Yes
Audit Logging
Unknown
Yes
Plugin
Yes
Yes
Yes
User Reports
Unknown
Yes
Plugin
Plugin
Yes
Yes
Other
Akismet plugin available.
Community Curation & SPAM removal
An Akismet mod is available
Plugin-based CAPTCHA system, Newly Registered Users permissions
Notification UBB.threads MyBB bbPress Vanilla SMF phpBB
RSS/ATOM
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
E-Mail
Yes
Yes
Plugin
Yes
Yes
Yes
Instant Messaging
0
Plugin
Jabber
Bookmarks
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Plugin
Yes
Community UBB.threads MyBB bbPress Vanilla SMF phpBB
Avatars
Yes
Yes
Plugin
Yes
Yes
Yes
User Ranks
Yes
Yes
Plugin
Yes
Yes
Yes
Rating/Karma System
Yes
Yes
Plugin
Yes
Yes
Patch
Signatures
Yes
Yes
Plugin
Plugin
Yes
Yes
Users Online List
Yes
Yes
Plugin
Plugin
Yes
Yes
Private Messaging
Yes
Yes
Plugin
Yes
Yes
Yes
Custom profile fields
Yes
Yes
Plugin
Plugin
Yes
Yes
Moderation UBB.threads MyBB bbPress Vanilla SMF phpBB
Moderators
global and forums
global and forums
global
global, forums and threads
global, forums and threads
global and forums
Move Threads
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Split Threads
Yes
Yes
Plugin
Plugin
Yes
Yes
Close Threads
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Shadow Topics
Yes
Yes
Unknown
Plugin
Yes
Yes
Sticky Threads
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Important Threads
Yes
Yes
Plugin
Yes
Plugin
Yes
Search UBB.threads MyBB bbPress Vanilla SMF phpBB
Full-text search
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Author search
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Advanced search
Yes
Yes
Plugin
Yes
Yes
Yes
Unread Topics
Database tracked
Database tracked
Database tracked
Database tracked
Database tracked
Customization UBB.threads MyBB bbPress Vanilla SMF phpBB
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
0
Mobile View
Unknown
Unknown
Unknown
Yes
Unknown
Unknown
Templates
global and forum specific
global and forum specific
global
global and forum specific
global and forum specific
global and forum specific
Custom BBCodes
Yes
Yes
Plugin
Plugin
Plugin
Yes
Skin-Editor
Yes
Yes
No
Plugin
Yes
Yes
Smiley Packs
Yes
Yes
Plugin
Plugin
Yes
Yes
Plugins
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Special Features UBB.threads MyBB bbPress Vanilla SMF phpBB
Statistics
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Polls
Yes
Yes
Plugin
Plugin
Yes
Yes
Calendar
Yes
Yes
No
Plugin
Yes
No
Friendly URLs
Yes
Plugin
Yes
Yes
Plugin
Plugin
Data Management UBB.threads MyBB bbPress Vanilla SMF phpBB
Available Importers
All platforms use: https://open.vanillaforums.com/addon/porter-core
Pruning
Yes
Plugin
Plugin
Yes
Yes
Yes
Archiving
No
No
Plugin
Yes
Plugin
No
Export Formats
BBXF
Proprietary or MySQLDump
WAP(2), IMode
SQL Dumps in .sql, sql.gz, and .sql.bz2
Export private messages
Yes
Yes
Plugin
Yes
Plugin
Yes
Lo-Fi View
Yes
Yes
Plugin
Yes
Yes
Yes
remove UBB.threads remove MyBB remove bbPress remove Vanilla remove SMF remove phpBB