Vanilla vs. XMB vs. MyBB vs. phpBB vs. Phorum vs. Beehive Forum

General Vanilla XMB MyBB phpBB Phorum Beehive Forum
Version
2.6.4
1.9.11
1.6.3
3.0.8
5.2.9a
1.4.7
Release Date
2018-10-28 (5 years ago)
Febuary 28, 2009
2011-04-16 (12 years ago)
2010-11-19 (13 years ago)
2008-10-12 (15 years ago)
2015-06-03 (8 years ago)
Last Update here
2018-11-01 (5 years ago)
2012-03-02 (12 years ago)
2011-06-22 (12 years ago)
2011-06-22 (12 years ago)
2008-10-16 (15 years ago)
2016-02-08 (8 years ago)
Author
Vanilla Forums Inc
The XMB Group
MyBB Group
The phpBB Group
Phorum Dev Team
Matt Beale, Mark Rendle
URL
Free and Open Source
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
License
GPL
General Public License
Custom
General Public License
The Phorum License (BSD)
GPL
License cost
0
0.00
US$0
0.00
0
0
Main View
Both, can be configured
Thread-Type
Flat
Flat
Threaded or Flat
Flat
Threaded or Flat
Threaded or Flat
Setup Vanilla XMB MyBB phpBB Phorum Beehive Forum
Installation method
wizard
wizard
wizard
wizard
wizard
wizard
Upgrade method
manual
wizard
wizard
wizard with manual interactions
wizard
wizard
Hosting available
Yes
No
No
No
No
Yes
Technology Vanilla XMB MyBB phpBB Phorum Beehive Forum
Programming Language
PHP
php
PHP
PHP
PHP
PHP
UTF-8 Support
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Data Storage
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
2
MySQL Database, PostgreSQL Database
1
MySQL Database
Other Storage
Source Code Repo
Issue Tracker
Posts Vanilla XMB MyBB phpBB Phorum Beehive Forum
BBCode
Plugin
Yes
Yes
Yes
Optional
No
HTML
Yes
Optional
Yes
No
Optional
Yes
Emoticons
Plugin
Yes
Yes
Yes
Optional
Yes
Formatting Toolbar
Plugin
Yes
Yes
Yes
Optional
Yes
WYSIWYG Editor
Plugin
No
Plugin
No
Plugin
Yes
Quoting
Single
Nested
Nested
Nested
Nested
Nested
Syntax Highlighting
Plugin
No
Yes
Yes
Plugin
Yes
Attachments
Multiple files
Multiple files
Multiple files
Multiple files
Multiple files
Multiple files
Tags
Yes
Unknown
Unknown
Unknown
Unknown
Unknown
Mark as solved
A particular post can highlighted as accepted answer
Forums Vanilla XMB MyBB phpBB Phorum Beehive Forum
Categories
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Subforums
unlimited
one level
unlimited
unlimited
multiple levels
Last Post
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Redirect Forums
Yes
No
Yes
Yes
No
No
Trashcan Forum
Yes
No
Plugin
No
No
Optional
Anti-Spam and Security Vanilla XMB MyBB phpBB Phorum Beehive Forum
CAPTCHA
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Optional
Optional
Groups
Multiple groups
Multiple groups
Multiple groups
Multiple groups
Multiple groups
Multiple groups
Flood Control
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
ACLs
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Blacklist
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Warnings
Plugin
Plugin
Yes
Yes
Plugin
Unknown
Suspension
Yes
Plugin
Yes
Yes
Plugin
Yes
Bans
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
IP-Block
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Audit Logging
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Optional
Yes
User Reports
Plugin
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Other
Community Curation & SPAM removal
Akismet plugin available.
Plugin-based CAPTCHA system, Newly Registered Users permissions
Aksimet Plugin
Worming, Pilllorying
Notification Vanilla XMB MyBB phpBB Phorum Beehive Forum
RSS/ATOM
Yes
Plugin
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
E-Mail
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Instant Messaging
Jabber
0
Yes
Bookmarks
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Community Vanilla XMB MyBB phpBB Phorum Beehive Forum
Avatars
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Plugin
Yes
User Ranks
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Plugin
No
Rating/Karma System
Yes
Plugin
Yes
Patch
Plugin
Yes
Signatures
Plugin
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Users Online List
Plugin
Yes
Yes
Yes
Plugin
Yes
Private Messaging
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Custom profile fields
Plugin
Plugin
Yes
Yes
Yes
Optional
Moderation Vanilla XMB MyBB phpBB Phorum Beehive Forum
Moderators
global, forums and threads
global and forums
global and forums
global and forums
global and forums
global, forums and threads
Move Threads
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Split Threads
Plugin
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Close Threads
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Shadow Topics
Plugin
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
No
Sticky Threads
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Important Threads
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Search Vanilla XMB MyBB phpBB Phorum Beehive Forum
Full-text search
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Author search
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Advanced search
Yes
No
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Unread Topics
Database tracked
Session tracked
Database tracked
Database tracked
Database tracked
Database tracked
Customization Vanilla XMB MyBB phpBB Phorum Beehive Forum
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
0
0
Mobile View
Yes
Unknown
Unknown
Unknown
Unknown
Unknown
Templates
global and forum specific
global and forum specific
global and forum specific
global and forum specific
global and forum specific
CSS only
Custom BBCodes
Plugin
Plugin
Yes
Yes
Plugin
No
Skin-Editor
Plugin
Yes
Yes
Yes
No
Yes
Smiley Packs
Plugin
Optional
Yes
Yes
Plugin
Yes
Plugins
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
No
Special Features Vanilla XMB MyBB phpBB Phorum Beehive Forum
Statistics
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Plugin
Yes
Polls
Plugin
Yes
Yes
Yes
Plugin
Yes
Calendar
Plugin
Plugin
Yes
No
No
No
Friendly URLs
Yes
Yes
Plugin
Plugin
Plugin
No
Data Management Vanilla XMB MyBB phpBB Phorum Beehive Forum
Available Importers
All platforms use: https://open.vanillaforums.com/addon/porter-core
Pruning
Yes
Yes
Plugin
Yes
Yes
No
Archiving
Yes
No
No
No
No
Unknown
Export Formats
Proprietary or MySQLDump
SQL Dumps in .sql, sql.gz, and .sql.bz2
Export private messages
Yes
No
Yes
Yes
No
Yes
Lo-Fi View
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Optional
Yes
remove Vanilla remove XMB remove MyBB remove phpBB remove Phorum remove Beehive Forum