Comparison of Internet forum software

This article outlines the general features commonly found in various Internet forum software packages. It highlights major features that the manager of a forum might want and should expect to be commonly available in different forum software. These comparisons do not include remotely hosted services which use their own proprietary software, rather than offering a package for download which webmasters can host by themselves.

General information

Basic general information about the forums: creator/company, license/price etc.

	Creator	Latest release date	Current stable version	Programming language	License
bbPress [1]	WordPress Foundation	2015-08-18	2.5.8	PHP[2]	GPL[3]
Beehive Forum [4]	Project Beehive Forum Developers	2015-06-04	1.4.7	PHP	GPL
Discourse [5]	Civilized Discourse Construction Kit, Inc.	2015-10-19	1.4.2	Ruby, Javascript	GPL
Discuz! [6]	Comsenz Inc.	2013-09-23	X3.2	PHP	Discuz! EULA (proprietary, gratis for non-commercial use)
eXo Platform [7]	eXo Platform SAS	2016-01-15	4.3.0	Java	LGPL
FluxBB [8]	FluxBB.org Developers	2015-11-09	1.5.9	PHP	GPL
FUDforum [9]	Advanced Internet Designs Inc.	2016-01-28[10]	3.0.7[10]	PHP	GPL
Ikonboard [11]	Matt Mecham (original creator) Joshua Johnson	2012-10-19	3.1.5A	Perl	Proprietary
Invision Power Board [12]	Invision Power Services Inc.	2016-04-24	4.1.11	PHP	Proprietary
MyBB [13]	MyBB Group	2016-03-11	1.8.7	PHP	LGPL, moving to BSD in 2.0[14]
Phorum [15]	Brian Moon	2015-06-19	5.2.20	PHP	Phorum License 2 (BSD like)
PHPWind [16]	Hangzhou Detian Information Technology Co. Ltd	2014-12-23	9.0.1	PHP	PHPWind EULA (proprietary, gratis for non-commercial use)
phpBB [17]	phpBB Ltd.	2016-04-17	3.1.9	PHP	GPL
PunBB [18]	PunBB	2015-10-14	1.4.4	PHP	GPL
Simple Machines Forum [19]	Simple Machines	2016-02-17 / 2015-09/19[20]	2.0.11 / 2.1b2[20]	PHP	BSD License
Syndie [21]	Anonymous (related to I2P)	2014-01-20	1.105b	Java	Open source, multiple licenses
UBB.threads [22]	UBB Systems, LLC	2015-01-27	7.5.9	PHP	Proprietary
Vanilla Forums [23]	Vanilla Forums	2015-11-12	2.2	PHP	Proprietary/GPL[24]
vBulletin[25]	vBulletin Solutions Inc.	2016-04-07	5.2.1[26]	PHP[27]	Proprietary[28]
WoltLab Burning Board [29]	WoltLab GmbH	2016-03-13	4.1.10	PHP	Proprietary
XenForo [30]	XenForo Ltd.	2016-04-05	1.5.7	PHP	Proprietary
	Creator	Latest release date	Current stable version	Programming language	License

Features

	Flat	Threaded	User selectable themes	Calendar	Image attachment	Unread message tracking	WYSIWYG Editor	Export, portability	Email / NNTP interface	Languages	SSO
bbPress	Yes	Yes	No	No	Plugin	Plugin	Yes (using TinyMCE)	Plugin (server-side[31])	Plugin[32][33]	Yes[34]
Beehive Forum	Yes	Yes	Yes	No	Yes	Full	Yes (using TinyMCE)	Partial (only PM[35])		No
Discourse	Yes	Yes	No	No	Yes	Full	No	Partial (admin-only to CSV[36][37])	Partial (formatting issues[38])	No[39][40]	Yes (OAuth)
Discuz!	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
eXo Platform	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Partial (admin-only, also per-category;[41] plugin?[42])		No[43]
FluxBB	Yes	No	Yes	No	Plugin	Session	No			Yes[44]
FUDforum	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Full	Yes	Partial (for admins[45])	Yes (native NNTP gateway[46])	Yes[47]
Iko	Yes	No	Yes	No	Planned	Yes	Yes
Ikonboard	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Session	No			No[48]
Invision Power Board	Yes	Yes	Yes	Plugin	Yes	Full	Yes			No[49]	No[50]
MyBB[51]	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Full	Yes	Maybe (thread export using an old mod[52])	Plugin (1.4.x)[53][54]	Yes[55]
Phorum	Yes	Yes	Yes	No	Yes	Full	Yes	Plugin[56]		No[57]
phpBB[58]	Yes	No	Yes	Plugin	Yes	Full	Planned	No[59]	Partial (phpBB2 mod[60][61])	Yes[62]	Yes (LDAP, OAuth, others)[63]
PunBB[64]	Yes	Plugin	Yes	Plugin	Plugin	Session	Plugin			No[65][66]
Simple Machines Forum	Yes	No	Yes	Yes	Yes	Full	Yes	Partial (PM[67])	Plugin (old)[68]	Yes[69]
Syndie	Yes	Yes	No	No	Yes	Full	Yes			No[70]
UBB.threads	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Full	Planned (Version 8.0)			No[71]	No
Vanilla Forums	Yes	Plugin	Yes	No	Plugin	Yes	Plugin	Partial (attachments[72] or admin-only [73])		No[74]	Yes[75][76]
vBulletin[77]	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Full	Yes	Partial (plugin,[78] vB 4[79])	No[80]	No[81]
XenForo	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Full	Yes			No[82]	No[83]
	Flat	Threaded	User selectable themes	Calendar	Image attachment	Unread message tracking	WYSIWYG Editor	Export, portability	Email / NNTP interface	languages	SSO

Data storage

Information about what data storage system can be used.

	MySQL	PostgreSQL	MSSQL	Oracle	SQLite	Firebird	Flat file
bbPress[2]	Yes	No	No	No	No	No	No
Beehive Forum	Yes	No	No	No	No	No	No
Discourse	No	Yes	No	No	No	No	No
Discuz!	Yes	Yes	No	No	No	No	No
eXo Platform	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	No	No	No
FluxBB	Yes	Yes	No	No	SQLite 2[84]	No	No
FUDforum	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	No
Iko	Yes	No	No	No	No	No	No
Ikonboard	Yes	Yes	No	Yes	No	No	Yes
Invision Power Board	Yes	No	Discontinued [85]	No	No	No	No
kusaba	Yes	No	No	No	No	No	No
MyBB[51]	Yes	Yes	No	No	Yes	No	No
Phorum	Yes	No	No	No	No	No	No
phpBB[58]	Yes	v8.2 or newer[86][87]	Yes	Yes	Yes	Discontinued	No
PunBB[64]	Yes	Yes	No	No	Yes	No	No
Simple Machines Forum	Yes	Yes	No	No	Yes	No	No
Syndie	Yes (HSQLDB)	No	No	No	No	No	No
UBB.threads	Yes	No	No	No	No	No	No
Vanilla Forums	Yes	No	No	No	No	No	No
vBulletin[77]	Yes	No	No	No	No	No	No
WoltLab Burning Board[88]	Yes	No	No	No	No	No	No
XenForo	Yes	No	No	No	No	No	No
	MySQL	PostgreSQL	MSSQL	Oracle	SQLite	Firebird	Flat file

Feature explanation

Below is a brief explanation for each of the features compared in the subarticles. For a forum to qualify for a feature, the functionality must be available out of the box, not as an add-on, plugin, etc.

Flat vs. threaded

• A flat forum is one where each message is added onto the end of the discussion, with no set relation to any prior messages (other than being on the same discussion topic — except in case of Off-Topic posting). But, there is normally a feature to 'quote' another user's post, to allow referencing back to other posts.
• A threaded forum is one where users can specify their message is a reply to an existing message. Threaded forums can display relationships between message topics and associated replies, such as by indenting replies and placing them below the post they reference. Threaded forums are most commonly used for discussions where individual messages tend to be short, such as on social news sites (e.g. Slashdot or reddit), or in commenting systems like Disqus.

Duplicate thread prevention

Many users do not bother to search a forum and directly create new threads to seek an answer to a question. On some forums, when the user types a new thread subject, the forum software brings up similar threads automatically on the side. This helps keep the number of redundant threads (or the overall forum pollution) to a lower level as users who neglect to search for a topic and are posting a thread may find the answer to their question as they are creating the new thread. Instead of having to search the forum, and then creating a thread if there is no satisfying answer, duplicate thread prevention allows the user to go and seek the answer to a topic. An example is Stack Overflow.

User-selectable themes

Most forums provide an option for the forum owner to customize the look and feel. Some forums also allow the administrator to create multiple styles or themes, and allow the user to choose which one they wish to view. Themes may simply be a different set of colors and graphics, or they may involve a different layout to the forum, such as one optimized for small-screen devices.

Calendar

Some forums provide calendar functionality for storing events and appointments, either per-user or as a forum-wide shared calendar.

Image attachments

Most forums provide the option for a user to upload an image along with a message posting. This is usually accompanied by a space limit (e.g. 1MB per user) to prevent users from filling up the forum host's webspace. Some forums also allow other types of files to be uploaded. Some allow inline linking to images hosted on image hosting services.

One major usability issue is whether images can be uploaded to a forum and displayed inline in message postings easily (or at all). The presence of "image attachment uploading" does not imply that in-message display of images within the flow of message text is possible (or if possible, easy to achieve).

Unread message tracking

Unread message tracking refers to the way that is used by forum software to track and display messages that have not yet been read by the current user. This can be one of the following:

• Session — when a user's session starts, this method relies on the user's "last visit time" to display all messages created since that date as unread. Everything that was posted before "last visit time" is considered "read" regardless of whether the user has actually seen it or not. Until the user's session expires, this method properly tracks read/unread messages, starting with messages that were selected as "unread" when the user's session started. This method is broadly used, due to the simplicity and speed benefits of only storing and checking against a single database value.
• Full — forum software which properly tracks what messages have been read or unread by each user, regardless of user session expiration. Some forum software also allows the user to 'mark as unread', so that they can come back to a message later.

Forum spam defenses

Most forums are at risk of continuous attack by forum spammers, largely promoting websites with no relevance to the forum's niche. Systems vary in how they are geared to defense, and checking the offering is an important consideration before selection. A forum cannot succeed unless there is an effective system of defense, and an efficient set of tools for spam removal.

CAPTCHAs are a common feature used among most internet forum software and are often used to prevent automated registrations.

Banning or deleting membership should come as standard, with the ability to blacklist the username, email address or IP address for variable time spans.

Reference to an anti-forum spam database can be built into the forum software, or offered as add-ons for specific databases.

User-friendly URLs

Human-friendly forum URLs do not have a query string and instead contain only the path of the topic. A user-unfriendly URL may contain cryptic parameters, numeric IDs, or file type extensions (e.g. .php) that do not matter to the user and could change if the forum is reimplemented using a different programming language. User-friendly URLs are easy to remember and to type, and may enhance search engine optimization (SEO).

• user-unfriendly URL example: http://example.com/forum/index.php?t=rview&th=120029
• user-friendly URL example: http://example.com/usability-issues/user-friendly-urls

In general this is accomplished via URL mapping, however, historically in many forum software packages, human-friendly URLs are an afterthought implemented via URL rewriting, and URLs often contain a numeric ID which represents the thread, while the remainder of the URL can in reality be any string: http://example.com/forum/12345/lets-use-friendly-urls and http://example.com/forum/12345/bogus-path-actually point to the same thread, http://example.com/forum/12345/.

The only non-controversial counter-argument to using user-friendly URLs is that they would be leaked in the HTTP referer header field when a user clicks on an external link from a post, which is undesirable for private (sub)forums, since a URL derived from the topic title could convey sensitive information.^[89] This issue can be resolved by rewriting external links to point to a redirection page that performs referer hiding.

Export, portability

This column judges the ability to allow users to export data from the forum installation and then import it in new installations of the same software (cf. right to fork) or feed it to data conversion tools.

Software portability is a key assessment criterion for the choice and procurement of software.^[90]

Email/NNTP interface

Whether the software can be used with standard Email or NNTP clients. Adoption of standard protocols is key for interoperability.^[91]

Languages

Whether the internationalization and localization of the software are sufficient to both allow and actually provide grammatically correct support for the native language of the target users.^[92]

For the purposes of this table, we consider languages used by an amount of installations/users equal to at least 1% of the top million web properties using that software,^[93] without major reported bugs in support.

Single sign-on

Single sign-on (SSO) is often required to enhance web accessibility of the application.^[94]

As for implementation, standards like OAuth and OpenID are preferred.

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