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

General YaBB XMB phpBB Vanilla MyBB SMF
Version
2.5 AE
1.9.11
3.0.8
2.6.4
1.6.3
2.0.6
Release Date
2010-07-04 (13 years ago)
Febuary 28, 2009
2010-11-19 (13 years ago)
2018-10-28 (5 years ago)
2011-04-16 (12 years ago)
2013-10-21 (10 years ago)
Last Update here
2010-07-06 (13 years ago)
2012-03-02 (12 years ago)
2011-06-22 (12 years ago)
2018-11-01 (5 years ago)
2011-06-22 (12 years ago)
2013-10-25 (10 years ago)
Author
YaBB Development Team
The XMB Group
The phpBB Group
Vanilla Forums Inc
MyBB Group
Simple Machines
URL
Free and Open Source
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
License
YPL (Modified GNU GPL)
General Public License
General Public License
GPL
Custom
BSD
License cost
Free
0.00
0.00
0
US$0
0
Main View
Both, can be configured
Thread-Type
Flat
Flat
Flat
Flat
Threaded or Flat
Flat
Setup YaBB XMB phpBB Vanilla MyBB 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
Yes
No
No
Yes
No
No
Technology YaBB XMB phpBB Vanilla MyBB SMF
Programming Language
Perl
php
PHP
PHP
PHP
PHP
UTF-8 Support
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Data Storage
0
1
MySQL Database
6
Firebird Database, Microsoft SQL Database, MySQL Database, Oracle Database, PostgreSQL Database, SQLite File Database
1
MySQL 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 YaBB XMB phpBB Vanilla MyBB SMF
BBCode
Yes
Yes
Yes
Plugin
Yes
Yes
HTML
Optional
Optional
No
Yes
Yes
Yes
Emoticons
Yes
Yes
Yes
Plugin
Yes
Yes
Formatting Toolbar
Yes
Yes
Yes
Plugin
Yes
Yes
WYSIWYG Editor
Yes
No
No
Plugin
Plugin
Yes
Quoting
Nested
Nested
Nested
Single
Nested
Nested
Syntax Highlighting
Yes
No
Yes
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 YaBB XMB phpBB Vanilla MyBB SMF
Categories
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Subforums
one level
one level
unlimited
unlimited
unlimited
unlimited
Last Post
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Redirect Forums
Patch
No
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Trashcan Forum
Optional
No
No
Yes
Plugin
Yes
Anti-Spam and Security YaBB XMB phpBB Vanilla MyBB SMF
CAPTCHA
Optional
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
Optional
Plugin
Yes
Plugin
Yes
Yes
Suspension
Yes
Plugin
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Bans
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
IP-Block
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Audit Logging
Optional
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
User Reports
Optional
Yes
Yes
Plugin
Yes
Yes
Other
trademark "the Guardian" system
Plugin-based CAPTCHA system, Newly Registered Users permissions
Community Curation & SPAM removal
Akismet plugin available.
An Akismet mod is available
Notification YaBB XMB phpBB Vanilla MyBB SMF
RSS/ATOM
Yes
Plugin
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
E-Mail
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Instant Messaging
Private message notifications and broadcast messages
Jabber
Bookmarks
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Plugin
Community YaBB XMB phpBB Vanilla MyBB SMF
Avatars
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
User Ranks
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Rating/Karma System
Patch
Plugin
Patch
Yes
Yes
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
Plugin
Yes
Plugin
Yes
Yes
Moderation YaBB XMB phpBB Vanilla MyBB 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 YaBB XMB phpBB Vanilla MyBB SMF
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 YaBB XMB phpBB Vanilla MyBB 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
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
Plugin
Yes
Plugin
Skin-Editor
Yes
Yes
Yes
Plugin
Yes
Yes
Smiley Packs
Yes
Optional
Yes
Plugin
Yes
Yes
Plugins
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Special Features YaBB XMB phpBB Vanilla MyBB SMF
Statistics
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Polls
Yes
Yes
Yes
Plugin
Yes
Yes
Calendar
Patch
Plugin
No
Plugin
Yes
Yes
Friendly URLs
Optional
Yes
Plugin
Yes
Plugin
Plugin
Data Management YaBB XMB phpBB Vanilla MyBB SMF
Available Importers
All platforms use: https://open.vanillaforums.com/addon/porter-core
Pruning
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Plugin
Yes
Archiving
No
No
No
Yes
No
Plugin
Export Formats
print layout; storage folders
SQL Dumps in .sql, sql.gz, and .sql.bz2
Proprietary or MySQLDump
WAP(2), IMode
Export private messages
No
No
Yes
Yes
Yes
Plugin
Lo-Fi View
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
remove YaBB remove XMB remove phpBB remove Vanilla remove MyBB remove SMF