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

General vBulletin MyBB phpBB Vanilla XMB SMF
Version
4.1.5
1.6.3
3.0.8
2.6.4
1.9.11
2.0.6
Release Date
2011-07-26 (12 years ago)
2011-04-16 (12 years ago)
2010-11-19 (13 years ago)
2018-10-28 (5 years ago)
Febuary 28, 2009
2013-10-21 (10 years ago)
Last Update here
2011-08-25 (12 years ago)
2011-06-22 (12 years ago)
2011-06-22 (12 years ago)
2018-11-01 (5 years ago)
2012-03-02 (12 years ago)
2013-10-25 (10 years ago)
Author
vBulletin Solutions
MyBB Group
The phpBB Group
Vanilla Forums Inc
The XMB Group
Simple Machines
URL
Free and Open Source
No
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
License
commercial / visible source
Custom
General Public License
GPL
General Public License
BSD
License cost
$285 Suite or $195 Forum
US$0
0.00
0
0.00
0
Main View
Both, can be configured
Thread-Type
Threaded or Flat
Threaded or Flat
Flat
Flat
Flat
Flat
Setup vBulletin MyBB phpBB Vanilla XMB SMF
Installation method
wizard
wizard
wizard
wizard
wizard
wizard
Upgrade method
wizard with manual interactions
wizard
wizard with manual interactions
manual
wizard
wizard
Hosting available
No
No
No
Yes
No
No
Technology vBulletin MyBB phpBB Vanilla XMB SMF
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
6
Firebird Database, Microsoft SQL Database, MySQL Database, Oracle Database, PostgreSQL Database, SQLite File Database
1
MySQL Database
1
MySQL Database
3
MySQL Database, PostgreSQL Database, SQLite File Database
Other Storage
Source Code Repo
Issue Tracker
Posts vBulletin MyBB phpBB Vanilla XMB SMF
BBCode
Yes
Yes
Yes
Plugin
Yes
Yes
HTML
Yes
Yes
No
Yes
Optional
Yes
Emoticons
Yes
Yes
Yes
Plugin
Yes
Yes
Formatting Toolbar
Yes
Yes
Yes
Plugin
Yes
Yes
WYSIWYG Editor
Yes
Plugin
No
Plugin
No
Yes
Quoting
Nested
Nested
Nested
Single
Nested
Nested
Syntax Highlighting
Yes
Yes
Yes
Plugin
No
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 vBulletin MyBB phpBB Vanilla XMB SMF
Categories
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Subforums
unlimited
unlimited
unlimited
unlimited
one level
unlimited
Last Post
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Redirect Forums
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
No
Yes
Trashcan Forum
Yes
Plugin
No
Yes
No
Yes
Anti-Spam and Security vBulletin MyBB phpBB Vanilla XMB SMF
CAPTCHA
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
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
Yes
Yes
Yes
Plugin
Plugin
Yes
Suspension
Yes
Yes
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
Yes
Yes
User Reports
Yes
Yes
Yes
Plugin
Yes
Yes
Other
Akismet
Akismet plugin available.
Plugin-based CAPTCHA system, Newly Registered Users permissions
Community Curation & SPAM removal
An Akismet mod is available
Notification vBulletin MyBB phpBB Vanilla XMB SMF
RSS/ATOM
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Plugin
Yes
E-Mail
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Instant Messaging
Jabber
Bookmarks
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Plugin
Community vBulletin MyBB phpBB Vanilla XMB SMF
Avatars
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
User Ranks
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Rating/Karma System
Yes
Yes
Patch
Yes
Plugin
Yes
Signatures
Yes
Yes
Yes
Plugin
Yes
Yes
Users Online List
Yes
Yes
Yes
Plugin
Yes
Yes
Private Messaging
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Custom profile fields
Yes
Yes
Yes
Plugin
Plugin
Yes
Moderation vBulletin MyBB phpBB Vanilla XMB SMF
Moderators
global and forums
global and forums
global and forums
global, forums and threads
global and forums
global, forums and threads
Move Threads
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Split Threads
Yes
Yes
Yes
Plugin
Yes
Yes
Close Threads
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Shadow Topics
Yes
Yes
Yes
Plugin
Yes
Yes
Sticky Threads
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Important Threads
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Plugin
Search vBulletin MyBB phpBB Vanilla XMB SMF
Full-text search
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Author search
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Advanced search
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
No
Yes
Unread Topics
Database tracked
Database tracked
Database tracked
Database tracked
Session tracked
Database tracked
Customization vBulletin MyBB phpBB Vanilla XMB SMF
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 and forum specific
global and forum specific
global and forum specific
global and forum specific
Custom BBCodes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Plugin
Plugin
Plugin
Skin-Editor
Yes
Yes
Yes
Plugin
Yes
Yes
Smiley Packs
Yes
Yes
Yes
Plugin
Optional
Yes
Plugins
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Special Features vBulletin MyBB phpBB Vanilla XMB SMF
Statistics
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Polls
Yes
Yes
Yes
Plugin
Yes
Yes
Calendar
Yes
Yes
No
Plugin
Plugin
Yes
Friendly URLs
Yes
Plugin
Plugin
Yes
Yes
Plugin
Data Management vBulletin MyBB phpBB Vanilla XMB SMF
Available Importers
All platforms use: https://open.vanillaforums.com/addon/porter-core
Pruning
Yes
Plugin
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Archiving
Yes
No
No
Yes
No
Plugin
Export Formats
Single Table CSV, Single and Multi-Table SQL
SQL Dumps in .sql, sql.gz, and .sql.bz2
Proprietary or MySQLDump
WAP(2), IMode
Export private messages
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
No
Plugin
Lo-Fi View
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
remove vBulletin remove MyBB remove phpBB remove Vanilla remove XMB remove SMF