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Dec
06
Filed Under (Uncategorized) by Mani Karthik on 06-12-2006
One question always asked among web designers is - Which is the best forum pack for a website?
And interestingly, although people have differences in opinion, they agree on one thing - the decision should be based on your usage type and not a result of band wagon effect.
There are various packages around, some of the most popular ones used are PhpBB, VBulletin and SMF.
All the three are different in many aspects though are similar in function - being forums.
Some of them are paid ones, with customer support and hacker protection, while some are free and easy to use - and favourties of hackers. Some go in between.
To help web masters decide on the best forum package for their site, I’ve listed the various forum packs with their features and a comparison list on who has it and who doesn’t. It would give you an easy flowchart kind of reference as to - If i need “this” then, “this” is best and “that” is not.
|
Feature |
vBulletin |
phpBB |
Invision Power Board |
SMF |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Author |
Jelsoft Enterprises Ltd. |
The phpBB Group |
Invision Power Services |
SMF Development Team |
|
|
URL |
|||||
|
Free or Open Source |
No |
Yes |
No |
Yes |
|
|
License |
commercial / visible source |
GPL |
Commercial |
Custom |
|
|
License cost |
$160 owned or $85/year |
0 |
Perpetual $185.00 Yearly $69.95 |
0 |
|
|
Programming Language |
PHP |
PHP |
PHP 4.3+ |
PHP |
|
|
UTF-8 Support |
Yes |
No |
Yes |
|
|
|
Type |
Threaded or Flat |
Flat |
Threaded or Flat |
Flat |
|
|
Data Storage |
vBulletin |
phpBB |
Invision Power Board |
SMF |
|
|
MySQL |
Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
|
|
Postgres |
No |
Yes |
No |
No |
|
|
Oracle |
No |
No |
Yes |
No |
|
|
SQLite |
No |
No |
|
No |
|
|
Texfiles |
No |
No |
|
No |
|
|
other |
|
MS SQL 7/2000, MS Access |
MS SQL |
|
|
|
Hosting available |
|
|
|
No |
|
|
Posts |
vBulletin |
phpBB |
Invision Power Board |
SMF |
|
|
BBCode |
Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
|
|
HTML |
Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
|
|
Emoticons |
Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
|
|
Formatting Toolbar |
Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
|
|
WYSIWYG Editor |
Yes |
|
Yes |
No |
|
|
Quoting |
Single |
Nested |
Nested |
Nested |
|
|
Syntax Highlighting |
Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
||
|
Attachments |
Multiple files |
No |
Multiple files |
Multiple files |
|
|
Forums |
vBulletin |
phpBB |
Invision Power Board |
SMF |
|
|
Categories |
Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
|
|
Subforums |
unlimited |
No |
unlimited |
unlimited |
|
|
Last Post |
Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
|
|
Redirect Forums |
Yes |
No |
Yes |
Plugin |
|
|
Trashcan Forum |
Yes |
No |
Optional |
Yes |
|
|
Notification |
vBulletin |
phpBB |
Invision Power Board |
SMF |
|
|
RSS/ATOM |
Yes |
No |
Yes |
Yes |
|
|
|
Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
|
|
Instant Messaging |
|
0 |
0 |
|
|
|
Bookmarks |
Yes |
No |
Yes |
|
|
|
Community |
vBulletin |
phpBB |
Invision Power Board |
SMF |
|
|
Avatars |
Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
|
|
User Ranks |
Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
|
|
Rating/Karma System |
Yes |
|
Yes |
Yes |
|
|
Signatures |
Yes |
Yes
|
Yes |
Yes |
|
|
Users Online List |
Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
|
|
Private Messaging |
Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
|
|
Custom profile fields |
Yes |
No |
Yes |
Plugin |
|
|
Moderation |
vBulletin |
phpBB |
Invision Power Board |
SMF |
|
|
Moderators |
global and forums |
global and forums |
global, forums and threads |
global, forums and threads |
|
|
Move Threads |
Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
|
|
|
Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
|
|
Close Threads |
Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
|
|
Shadow Topics |
Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
|
|
Sticky Threads |
Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
|
|
Important Threads |
Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
|
|
|
Search |
vBulletin |
phpBB |
Invision Power Board |
SMF |
|
|
Full-text search |
Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
|
|
Author search |
Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
|
|
Advanced search |
Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
|
|
Unread Topics |
|
|
Database tracked |
||
|
Customization |
vBulletin |
phpBB |
Invision Power Board |
SMF |
|
|
Languages |
Official: English, German, Chinese, Hungarian; Translatable into any language |
50+ |
Integrated language editor |
25+ |
|
|
Templates |
global and forum specific |
global |
global |
global and forum specific |
|
|
Custom BBCodes |
Yes |
No |
Yes |
Plugin |
|
|
Skin-Editor |
Yes |
No |
Yes |
Yes |
|
|
Smiley Packs |
Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
|
|
Plugins |
Yes |
|
Optional |
Yes |
|
|
Special Features |
vBulletin |
phpBB |
Invision Power Board |
SMF |
|
|
Statistics |
Yes |
|
Yes |
Yes |
|
|
Polls |
Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
|
|
Calendar |
Yes |
Patch |
Yes |
Yes |
|
|
Friendly URLs |
Yes |
No |
Yes |
Yes |
|
|
Anti-Spam and Security |
vBulletin |
phpBB |
Invision Power Board |
SMF |
|
|
CAPTCHA |
Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
Plugin |
|
|
Groups |
Multiple groups |
Multiple groups |
Multiple groups |
Multiple groups |
|
|
Flood Control |
Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
|
|
ACLs |
Yes |
Yes |
|
Yes |
|
|
Blacklist |
Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
|
|
Warnings |
Yes |
No |
Yes |
lugin |
|
|
Suspension |
Yes |
No |
Yes |
Yes |
|
|
Bans |
Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
|
|
IP-Block |
Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
|
|
Data Management |
vBulletin |
phpBB |
Invision Power Board |
SMF |
|
|
Pruning |
Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
|
|
Archiving |
No |
No |
Yes |
|
|
|
Export Formats |
Single Table CSV, Single and Multi-Table SQL |
|
Word, HTML |
WAP(2), IMode |
|
|
Export private messages |
Yes |
No |
Yes |
No |
|
|
Lo-Fi View |
Yes |
No |
Yes |
Yes |
This comparison chart can also be foud here
To conclude, many webmasters prefers phpBB as the best open source hosting package - but it has the following downs.
- Security issues
- Does not give your site that professional look
- Everybody knows it’s a cheap one.
But it scores in the following points.
- Has plenty of plugins and hacks available that makes it unique.
- Plenty of skins available.
- Can be integrated easily with other php based packages like image galleries.
But many webmasters prefer VBulletin if you are going for a professional website(that is if you can pay for it.)
Up’s
- Excellent security
- Good client support
Downs
- The money factor of course!
- not many plugins and hacks available as phpbb.
Hope this helped in understanding which forum to go with on your site.
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Comments
gennnniiikk on 6 October, 2007 at 7:05 pm #
Hello
Bye
idnedhelper on 7 November, 2007 at 11:44 am #
Hi,
Can you explain me how to create new poll on this forum. Thanks 
Mani Karthik on 7 November, 2007 at 9:56 pm #
You can find it here
idnedhelper on 11 November, 2007 at 4:56 am #
Holla,
Can you explain me how to create new poll on this forum. Thanks
fluennafuts9 on 14 November, 2007 at 11:12 am #
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