Vanilla vs. XMB vs. phpBB vs. MyBB vs. SMF

General Vanilla XMB phpBB MyBB SMF
Version
2.6.4
1.9.11
3.0.8
1.6.3
2.0.6
Release Date
2018-10-28 (5 years ago)
Febuary 28, 2009
2010-11-19 (13 years ago)
2011-04-16 (12 years ago)
2013-10-21 (10 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)
2013-10-25 (10 years ago)
Author
Vanilla Forums Inc
The XMB Group
The phpBB Group
MyBB Group
Simple Machines
URL
Free and Open Source
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
License
GPL
General Public License
General Public License
Custom
BSD
License cost
0
0.00
0.00
US$0
0
Main View
Both, can be configured
Thread-Type
Flat
Flat
Flat
Threaded or Flat
Flat
Setup Vanilla XMB phpBB MyBB SMF
Installation method
wizard
wizard
wizard
wizard
wizard
Upgrade method
manual
wizard
wizard with manual interactions
wizard
wizard
Hosting available
Yes
No
No
No
No
Technology Vanilla XMB phpBB MyBB SMF
Programming Language
PHP
php
PHP
PHP
PHP
UTF-8 Support
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Data Storage
1
MySQL Database
1
MySQL Database
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
Other Storage
Source Code Repo
Issue Tracker
Posts Vanilla XMB phpBB MyBB SMF
BBCode
Plugin
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
HTML
Yes
Optional
No
Yes
Yes
Emoticons
Plugin
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Formatting Toolbar
Plugin
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
WYSIWYG Editor
Plugin
No
No
Plugin
Yes
Quoting
Single
Nested
Nested
Nested
Nested
Syntax Highlighting
Plugin
No
Yes
Yes
Yes
Attachments
Multiple files
Multiple files
Multiple files
Multiple files
Multiple files
Tags
Yes
Unknown
Unknown
Unknown
Unknown
Mark as solved
A particular post can highlighted as accepted answer
Forums Vanilla XMB phpBB MyBB SMF
Categories
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Subforums
unlimited
one level
unlimited
unlimited
unlimited
Last Post
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Redirect Forums
Yes
No
Yes
Yes
Yes
Trashcan Forum
Yes
No
No
Plugin
Yes
Anti-Spam and Security Vanilla XMB phpBB MyBB SMF
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
Plugin
Plugin
Yes
Yes
Yes
Suspension
Yes
Plugin
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
Plugin
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Other
Community Curation & SPAM removal
Plugin-based CAPTCHA system, Newly Registered Users permissions
Akismet plugin available.
An Akismet mod is available
Notification Vanilla XMB phpBB MyBB SMF
RSS/ATOM
Yes
Plugin
Yes
Yes
Yes
E-Mail
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Instant Messaging
Jabber
Bookmarks
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Plugin
Community Vanilla XMB phpBB MyBB SMF
Avatars
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
User Ranks
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Rating/Karma System
Yes
Plugin
Patch
Yes
Yes
Signatures
Plugin
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Users Online List
Plugin
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Private Messaging
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Custom profile fields
Plugin
Plugin
Yes
Yes
Yes
Moderation Vanilla XMB phpBB MyBB SMF
Moderators
global, forums and threads
global and forums
global and forums
global and forums
global, forums and threads
Move Threads
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Split Threads
Plugin
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Close Threads
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Shadow Topics
Plugin
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Sticky Threads
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Important Threads
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Plugin
Search Vanilla XMB phpBB MyBB SMF
Full-text search
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Author search
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Advanced search
Yes
No
Yes
Yes
Yes
Unread Topics
Database tracked
Session tracked
Database tracked
Database tracked
Database tracked
Customization Vanilla XMB phpBB MyBB SMF
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
Mobile View
Yes
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
Custom BBCodes
Plugin
Plugin
Yes
Yes
Plugin
Skin-Editor
Plugin
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Smiley Packs
Plugin
Optional
Yes
Yes
Yes
Plugins
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Special Features Vanilla XMB phpBB MyBB SMF
Statistics
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Polls
Plugin
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Calendar
Plugin
Plugin
No
Yes
Yes
Friendly URLs
Yes
Yes
Plugin
Plugin
Plugin
Data Management Vanilla XMB phpBB MyBB SMF
Available Importers
All platforms use: https://open.vanillaforums.com/addon/porter-core
Pruning
Yes
Yes
Yes
Plugin
Yes
Archiving
Yes
No
No
No
Plugin
Export Formats
Proprietary or MySQLDump
SQL Dumps in .sql, sql.gz, and .sql.bz2
WAP(2), IMode
Export private messages
Yes
No
Yes
Yes
Plugin
Lo-Fi View
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
remove Vanilla remove XMB remove phpBB remove MyBB remove SMF