Vanilla vs. JForum vs. MyBB vs. phpBB

General Vanilla JForum MyBB phpBB
Version
2.6.4
2.1.8
1.6.3
3.0.8
Release Date
2018-10-28 (5 years ago)
2008-10-31 (15 years ago)
2011-04-16 (12 years ago)
2010-11-19 (13 years ago)
Last Update here
2018-11-01 (5 years ago)
2008-01-02 (16 years ago)
2011-06-22 (12 years ago)
2011-06-22 (12 years ago)
Author
Vanilla Forums Inc
Rafael Steil
MyBB Group
The phpBB Group
URL
Free and Open Source
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
License
GPL
BSD
Custom
General Public License
License cost
0
0
US$0
0.00
Main View
Both, can be configured
Thread-Type
Flat
Flat
Threaded or Flat
Flat
Setup Vanilla JForum MyBB phpBB
Installation method
wizard
wizard
wizard
wizard
Upgrade method
manual
manual
wizard
wizard with manual interactions
Hosting available
Yes
No
No
No
Technology Vanilla JForum MyBB phpBB
Programming Language
PHP
Java
PHP
PHP
UTF-8 Support
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Data Storage
1
MySQL Database
3
MySQL Database, Oracle Database, PostgreSQL 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
HSQLDB
Source Code Repo
Issue Tracker
Posts Vanilla JForum MyBB phpBB
BBCode
Plugin
Yes
Yes
Yes
HTML
Yes
Yes
Yes
No
Emoticons
Plugin
Yes
Yes
Yes
Formatting Toolbar
Plugin
No
Yes
Yes
WYSIWYG Editor
Plugin
No
Plugin
No
Quoting
Single
Nested
Nested
Nested
Syntax Highlighting
Plugin
No
Yes
Yes
Attachments
Multiple files
Multiple files
Multiple files
Multiple files
Tags
Yes
Unknown
Unknown
Unknown
Mark as solved
A particular post can highlighted as accepted answer
Forums Vanilla JForum MyBB phpBB
Categories
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Subforums
unlimited
No
unlimited
unlimited
Last Post
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Redirect Forums
Yes
No
Yes
Yes
Trashcan Forum
Yes
No
Plugin
No
Anti-Spam and Security Vanilla JForum MyBB phpBB
CAPTCHA
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Groups
Multiple groups
Multiple groups
Multiple groups
Multiple groups
Flood Control
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
ACLs
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Blacklist
Yes
No
Yes
Yes
Warnings
Plugin
No
Yes
Yes
Suspension
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Bans
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
IP-Block
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Audit Logging
Yes
Unknown
Yes
Yes
User Reports
Plugin
No
Yes
Yes
Other
Community Curation & SPAM removal
Akismet plugin available.
Plugin-based CAPTCHA system, Newly Registered Users permissions
Notification Vanilla JForum MyBB phpBB
RSS/ATOM
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
E-Mail
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Instant Messaging
0
Jabber
Bookmarks
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Community Vanilla JForum MyBB phpBB
Avatars
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
User Ranks
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Rating/Karma System
Yes
Yes
Yes
Patch
Signatures
Plugin
Yes
Yes
Yes
Users Online List
Plugin
Yes
Yes
Yes
Private Messaging
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Custom profile fields
Plugin
No
Yes
Yes
Moderation Vanilla JForum MyBB phpBB
Moderators
global, forums and threads
global and forums
global and forums
global and forums
Move Threads
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Split Threads
Plugin
No
Yes
Yes
Close Threads
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Shadow Topics
Plugin
Yes
Yes
Yes
Sticky Threads
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Important Threads
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Search Vanilla JForum MyBB phpBB
Full-text search
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Author search
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Advanced search
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Unread Topics
Database tracked
Database tracked
Database tracked
Database tracked
Customization Vanilla JForum MyBB phpBB
Languages
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
0
Mobile View
Yes
Unknown
Unknown
Unknown
Templates
global and forum specific
global
global and forum specific
global and forum specific
Custom BBCodes
Plugin
Yes
Yes
Yes
Skin-Editor
Plugin
No
Yes
Yes
Smiley Packs
Plugin
Yes
Yes
Yes
Plugins
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Special Features Vanilla JForum MyBB phpBB
Statistics
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Polls
Plugin
Yes
Yes
Yes
Calendar
Plugin
No
Yes
No
Friendly URLs
Yes
Yes
Plugin
Plugin
Data Management Vanilla JForum MyBB phpBB
Available Importers
All platforms use: https://open.vanillaforums.com/addon/porter-core
Pruning
Yes
No
Plugin
Yes
Archiving
Yes
No
No
No
Export Formats
Proprietary or MySQLDump
SQL Dumps in .sql, sql.gz, and .sql.bz2
Export private messages
Yes
No
Yes
Yes
Lo-Fi View
Yes
No
Yes
Yes
remove Vanilla remove JForum remove MyBB remove phpBB