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Comparison of Internet forum software (PHP)

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This is a comparison of the features of various Internet forum

Internet forum

An Internet forum, or message board, is an online discussion site where people can hold conversations in the form of posted messages. They differ from chat rooms in that messages are at least temporarily archived...

packages written in PHP

PHP

PHP is a general-purpose server-side scripting language originally designed for web development to produce dynamic web pages. For this purpose, PHP code is embedded into the HTML source document and interpreted by a web server with a PHP processor module, which generates the web page document...

General information

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

	Creator	Latest release date	Current stable version	License	Automatic Updates (for security)
Beehive Forum Beehive Forum Beehive Forum is a free and open source forum system using the PHP scripting language and MySQL database software.The main difference between Beehive and most other forum software is its frame-based interface, which lists discussion titles on the left and displays their contents on the right.Other...	Project Beehive Forum Developers	2011-02-14	1.0.1	GPL GNU General Public License The GNU General Public License is the most widely used free software license, originally written by Richard Stallman for the GNU Project....	manually
bbPress	Automattic Automattic Automattic, Inc. is a web development corporation founded in August 2005.It is most notable for WordPress.com , as well as its contributions to WordPress .-Projects:Other projects include:...	2009-07-28	1.1	GPL GNU General Public License The GNU General Public License is the most widely used free software license, originally written by Richard Stallman for the GNU Project....	Yes
Discuz	Comsenz Technology Co., Ltd.	2010-10-20	7.2	Discuz! EULA (proprietary Proprietary software Proprietary software is computer software licensed under exclusive legal right of the copyright holder. The licensee is given the right to use the software under certain conditions, while restricted from other uses, such as modification, further distribution, or reverse engineering.Complementary... , gratis Gratis Gratis is the process of providing goods or services without compensation. It is often referred to in English as "free of charge" or "complimentary"... for non-commercial use)	manually
e107 E107 (CMS) e107 is a free software/open source content management system for creating and managing websites through a simple web interface.The e107 software is published as open source under the GNU GPL licence v2.-Built in Features:...	e107 (CMS) E107 (CMS) e107 is a free software/open source content management system for creating and managing websites through a simple web interface.The e107 software is published as open source under the GNU GPL licence v2.-Built in Features:...	2011-04-06	0.7.25	GPL GNU General Public License The GNU General Public License is the most widely used free software license, originally written by Richard Stallman for the GNU Project....	manually
FluxBB FluxBB FluxBB is a lightweight free software PHP-based internet discussion board system. FluxBB is a fork of the PunBB project, created in response to developers protesting the increasing emphasis of a partnership with a corporate organization on the PunBB project...	FluxBB.org Developers	2011-09-13	1.4.7	GPL GNU General Public License The GNU General Public License is the most widely used free software license, originally written by Richard Stallman for the GNU Project....	manually
FUDforum FUDforum FUDforum is a free and open source Internet forum software, originally produced by Advanced Internet Designs Inc., that is now maintained by the user community. The name "FUDforum" is an abbreviation of Fast Uncompromising Discussion forum. It is comparable to other forum software...	Ilia Alshanetsky and community	2011-07-17	3.0.3RC1	GPL GNU General Public License The GNU General Public License is the most widely used free software license, originally written by Richard Stallman for the GNU Project....	manually
ImperialBB	ImperialBB.com	2010-02-28	1.0	GPL GNU General Public License The GNU General Public License is the most widely used free software license, originally written by Richard Stallman for the GNU Project....	manually
IceBB	XAOS Interactive	2010-12-02	1.0	GPL GNU General Public License The GNU General Public License is the most widely used free software license, originally written by Richard Stallman for the GNU Project....	manually
Invision Power Board Invision Power Board Invision Power Board is an Internet forum software produced by Invision Power Services, Inc...	Invision Power Services Inc. Invision Power Services Invision Power Services, Inc. is a software and web hosting company established in February 2002, best known for Invision Power Board. Its headquarters is based in Forest, Virginia.- History :...	2011-08-31	3.2.2	Proprietary Proprietary software Proprietary software is computer software licensed under exclusive legal right of the copyright holder. The licensee is given the right to use the software under certain conditions, while restricted from other uses, such as modification, further distribution, or reverse engineering.Complementary...	manually
MercuryBoard	Jason Warner, Mark Elliot, and Jonathan West	2008-02-24	1.1.7	GPL GNU General Public License The GNU General Public License is the most widely used free software license, originally written by Richard Stallman for the GNU Project....	manually
miniBB	Paul Puzyrev & Sergei Larionov	2010-10-05	2.5a	GPL GNU General Public License The GNU General Public License is the most widely used free software license, originally written by Richard Stallman for the GNU Project....	manually
MyBB	MyBB Group	2011-07-26	1.6.4	LGPL GNU Lesser General Public License The GNU Lesser General Public License or LGPL is a free software license published by the Free Software Foundation . It was designed as a compromise between the strong-copyleft GNU General Public License or GPL and permissive licenses such as the BSD licenses and the MIT License...	manually
NextBBS	Chris FR & Team	2008-02-18	0.5.3	GPL	manually
NinkoBB	Nijikokun	2010-03-16	1.3 RC5	GPL	manually
NovaBoard	Developers and Community	2010-06-13	1.1.4	Artistic License 2.0 Artistic License The Artistic License refers most commonly to the original Artistic License , a software license used for certain free and open source software packages, most notably the standard Perl implementation and most CPAN modules, which are dual-licensed under the Artistic License and the GNU General Public...	manually
OvBB	Jonathon Freeman & Brian Otto	2007-04-06	V0.16a	MIT MIT License The MIT License is a free software license originating at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology . It is a permissive license, meaning that it permits reuse within proprietary software provided all copies of the licensed software include a copy of the MIT License terms...	manually
Phorum Phorum Phorum is an open source message board system written in PHP.-History:In April 1998, Brian Moon developed three scripts that would meet the basic needs of . With 30 days of testing, the code was prepared enough to put into production. It was named WebThreads, though this name was later found to...	Brian Moon	2011-09-09	5.2.18	Phorum License 2 (BSD BSD licenses BSD licenses are a family of permissive free software licenses. The original license was used for the Berkeley Software Distribution , a Unix-like operating system after which it is named.... like)	manually
phpBB PhpBB phpBB is a popular Internet forum package written in the PHP scripting language. The name "phpBB" is an abbreviation of PHP Bulletin Board... 3	phpBB Ltd. PhpBB phpBB is a popular Internet forum package written in the PHP scripting language. The name "phpBB" is an abbreviation of PHP Bulletin Board...	2011-07-10	3.0.9	GPL GNU General Public License The GNU General Public License is the most widely used free software license, originally written by Richard Stallman for the GNU Project....	Yes
PunBB	Rickard Andersson	2011-09-18	1.3.6	GPL GNU General Public License The GNU General Public License is the most widely used free software license, originally written by Richard Stallman for the GNU Project....	manually
Quicksilver Forums	Geoff Dunn, Roger Libiez (Samson) & The Quicksilver Forums Development Team	2011-01-16	1.5	GPL GNU General Public License The GNU General Public License is the most widely used free software license, originally written by Richard Stallman for the GNU Project....	manually
Simple Machines 1 Simple Machines Forum Simple Machines Forum is a free Internet forum application. The software is written in PHP and uses a MySQL database backend, although multi-database support is being developed for version 2.0...	Simple Machines	2011-09-18	1.1.15	Proprietary Proprietary software Proprietary software is computer software licensed under exclusive legal right of the copyright holder. The licensee is given the right to use the software under certain conditions, while restricted from other uses, such as modification, further distribution, or reverse engineering.Complementary...	manually
Simple Machines 2 Simple Machines Forum Simple Machines Forum is a free Internet forum application. The software is written in PHP and uses a MySQL database backend, although multi-database support is being developed for version 2.0...	Simple Machines	2011-09-18	2.0.1	BSD License BSD licenses BSD licenses are a family of permissive free software licenses. The original license was used for the Berkeley Software Distribution , a Unix-like operating system after which it is named....	manually
Simply AJAX Forum System (SAFS) Simply AJAX Forum System (SAFS) Simply AJAX Forum System is an Internet forum application written in the PHP scripting language. It was originally built from the Simply Secure Forum System but was later revised and more features added.- History :...	Fast Track Sites	2010-05-20	3.10.05.20	Proprietary Proprietary software Proprietary software is computer software licensed under exclusive legal right of the copyright holder. The licensee is given the right to use the software under certain conditions, while restricted from other uses, such as modification, further distribution, or reverse engineering.Complementary...	manually
Tritanium Bulletin Board	Tritanium Scripts	2011-11-04	1.6	CC 3.0 by-nc-sa Creative Commons licenses Creative Commons licenses are several copyright licenses that allow the distribution of copyrighted works. The licenses differ by several combinations that condition the terms of distribution. They were initially released on December 16, 2002 by Creative Commons, a U.S...	manually
UBB.threads UBB.threads UBB.threads is an Internet forum software package originally written by Rick Baker. Written with PHP using a MySQL database backend, it is comparable to other forum software written in PHP....	Mindraven, Inc.	2010-08-21	7.5.6	Proprietary Proprietary software Proprietary software is computer software licensed under exclusive legal right of the copyright holder. The licensee is given the right to use the software under certain conditions, while restricted from other uses, such as modification, further distribution, or reverse engineering.Complementary...	manually
UseBB	Dietrich Moerman	2011-11-04	1.0.14	GPL GNU General Public License The GNU General Public License is the most widely used free software license, originally written by Richard Stallman for the GNU Project....	manually
Vanilla	Vanilla Forums Inc.	2011-11-03	2.0.18	GPL GNU General Public License The GNU General Public License is the most widely used free software license, originally written by Richard Stallman for the GNU Project....	manually
vBulletin VBulletin vBulletin is a proprietary Internet forum software produced by Jelsoft Enterprises and vBulletin Solutions, both subsidiaries of Internet Brands. It is written in PHP and uses a MySQL database server.-History:...	vBulletin Solutions Inc.	2011-11-04	4.1.7pl2	Proprietary Proprietary software Proprietary software is computer software licensed under exclusive legal right of the copyright holder. The licensee is given the right to use the software under certain conditions, while restricted from other uses, such as modification, further distribution, or reverse engineering.Complementary...	manually
WhiteBoard	Eli White & SaroSoftware	2010-05-30	0.1.30	GPL GNU General Public License The GNU General Public License is the most widely used free software license, originally written by Richard Stallman for the GNU Project....	manually
Woltlab Burning Board	WoltLab GmbH	2011-08-26	3.1.6	proprietary Proprietary software Proprietary software is computer software licensed under exclusive legal right of the copyright holder. The licensee is given the right to use the software under certain conditions, while restricted from other uses, such as modification, further distribution, or reverse engineering.Complementary...	manually
XenForo XenForo XenForo is a commercial Internet forum software written in the PHP programming language using the Zend Framework. The software is developed by a team led by former vBulletin lead developers Kier Darby and Mike Sullivan. The first public beta release of XenForo was released in October 2010...	XenForo Ltd.	2011-11-22	1.1.0	Proprietary Proprietary software Proprietary software is computer software licensed under exclusive legal right of the copyright holder. The licensee is given the right to use the software under certain conditions, while restricted from other uses, such as modification, further distribution, or reverse engineering.Complementary...	manually
XMB	XMB Software	2009-03-01	1.9.11	GPL GNU General Public License The GNU General Public License is the most widely used free software license, originally written by Richard Stallman for the GNU Project....	manually
NitPick2011	?	2011-09-18	1.0	?	manually
	Creator	Latest release date	Current stable version	License	Automatic Updates (for security)

Features

Flat	Threaded	User-selectable themes	Calendar	Image attachment	Unread message tracking	WYSIWYG Editor WYSIWYG WYSIWYG is an acronym for What You See Is What You Get. The term is used in computing to describe a system in which content displayed onscreen during editing appears in a form closely corresponding to its appearance when printed or displayed as a finished product...
Beehive Forum Beehive Forum Beehive Forum is a free and open source forum system using the PHP scripting language and MySQL database software.The main difference between Beehive and most other forum software is its frame-based interface, which lists discussion titles on the left and displays their contents on the right.Other...						Full	(using TinyMCE TinyMCE TinyMCE, also known as the Tiny Moxiecode Content Editor, is a platform-independent web-based JavaScript/HTML WYSIWYG editor control, released as open source software under the LGPL by Moxiecode Systems AB. It has the ability to convert HTML textarea fields or other HTML elements to editor instances... )
bbPress		Plugin			Plugin	Plugin	Plugin
Discuz
e107 E107 (CMS) e107 is a free software/open source content management system for creating and managing websites through a simple web interface.The e107 software is published as open source under the GNU GPL licence v2.-Built in Features:...
FluxBB FluxBB FluxBB is a lightweight free software PHP-based internet discussion board system. FluxBB is a fork of the PunBB project, created in response to developers protesting the increasing emphasis of a partnership with a corporate organization on the PunBB project...						Session
FUDforum FUDforum FUDforum is a free and open source Internet forum software, originally produced by Advanced Internet Designs Inc., that is now maintained by the user community. The name "FUDforum" is an abbreviation of Fast Uncompromising Discussion forum. It is comparable to other forum software...						Full
IceBB						Full
Invision Power Board Invision Power Board Invision Power Board is an Internet forum software produced by Invision Power Services, Inc...						Full
kusaba						?
MercuryBoard						Session
miniBB
MyBB						Full	Plugin
NextBBS						Full
NinkoBB						?
NovaBoard						Full
Phorum Phorum Phorum is an open source message board system written in PHP.-History:In April 1998, Brian Moon developed three scripts that would meet the basic needs of . With 30 days of testing, the code was prepared enough to put into production. It was named WebThreads, though this name was later found to...						Full
phpBB PhpBB phpBB is a popular Internet forum package written in the PHP scripting language. The name "phpBB" is an abbreviation of PHP Bulletin Board... 3				Plugin		Full	Planned
PunBB		Plugin		Plugin	Plugin	Session	Plugin
Quicksilver Forums						Full
Simple Machines 1 Simple Machines Forum Simple Machines Forum is a free Internet forum application. The software is written in PHP and uses a MySQL database backend, although multi-database support is being developed for version 2.0...						Full
Simple Machines 2 Simple Machines Forum Simple Machines Forum is a free Internet forum application. The software is written in PHP and uses a MySQL database backend, although multi-database support is being developed for version 2.0...						Full
Simply AJAX Forum System (SAFS) Simply AJAX Forum System (SAFS) Simply AJAX Forum System is an Internet forum application written in the PHP scripting language. It was originally built from the Simply Secure Forum System but was later revised and more features added.- History :...						Full
Tritanium Bulletin Board				Planned		Full
UBB.threads UBB.threads UBB.threads is an Internet forum software package originally written by Rick Baker. Written with PHP using a MySQL database backend, it is comparable to other forum software written in PHP....						Full	Planned (Version 8.0)
UseBB						Session
Vanilla		Plugin	Plugin	Plugin	Plugin	Plugin	Plugin
vBulletin VBulletin vBulletin is a proprietary Internet forum software produced by Jelsoft Enterprises and vBulletin Solutions, both subsidiaries of Internet Brands. It is written in PHP and uses a MySQL database server.-History:...						Full
WhiteBoard			Planned			Full
Woltlab Burning Board						Full
XenForo XenForo XenForo is a commercial Internet forum software written in the PHP programming language using the Zend Framework. The software is developed by a team led by former vBulletin lead developers Kier Darby and Mike Sullivan. The first public beta release of XenForo was released in October 2010...						Full
XMB						?
NitPick2011
	Flat	Threaded	User-selectable themes	Calendar	Image attachment	Unread message tracking	WYSIWYG Editor WYSIWYG WYSIWYG is an acronym for What You See Is What You Get. The term is used in computing to describe a system in which content displayed onscreen during editing appears in a form closely corresponding to its appearance when printed or displayed as a finished product...

Data storage

Information about what data storage system can be used.

MySQL MySQL MySQL officially, but also commonly "My Sequel") is a relational database management system that runs as a server providing multi-user access to a number of databases. It is named after developer Michael Widenius' daughter, My...	PostgreSQL PostgreSQL PostgreSQL, often simply Postgres, is an object-relational database management system available for many platforms including Linux, FreeBSD, Solaris, MS Windows and Mac OS X. It is released under the PostgreSQL License, which is an MIT-style license, and is thus free and open source software...	MSSQL Microsoft SQL Server Microsoft SQL Server is a relational database server, developed by Microsoft: It is a software product whose primary function is to store and retrieve data as requested by other software applications, be it those on the same computer or those running on another computer across a network...	Oracle Oracle database The Oracle Database is an object-relational database management system produced and marketed by Oracle Corporation....	SQLite SQLite SQLite is an ACID-compliant embedded relational database management system contained in a relatively small C programming library. The source code for SQLite is in the public domain and implements most of the SQL standard...	Firebird Firebird (database server) Firebird is an open source SQL relational database management system that runs on Linux, Windows, and a variety of Unix. The database forked from Borland's open source edition of InterBase in 2000, but since Firebird 1.5 the code has been largely rewritten ....
Beehive Forum Beehive Forum Beehive Forum is a free and open source forum system using the PHP scripting language and MySQL database software.The main difference between Beehive and most other forum software is its frame-based interface, which lists discussion titles on the left and displays their contents on the right.Other...
bbPress
Discuz
e107 E107 (CMS) e107 is a free software/open source content management system for creating and managing websites through a simple web interface.The e107 software is published as open source under the GNU GPL licence v2.-Built in Features:...
FluxBB FluxBB FluxBB is a lightweight free software PHP-based internet discussion board system. FluxBB is a fork of the PunBB project, created in response to developers protesting the increasing emphasis of a partnership with a corporate organization on the PunBB project...
FUDforum FUDforum FUDforum is a free and open source Internet forum software, originally produced by Advanced Internet Designs Inc., that is now maintained by the user community. The name "FUDforum" is an abbreviation of Fast Uncompromising Discussion forum. It is comparable to other forum software...
IceBB
Invision Power Board Invision Power Board Invision Power Board is an Internet forum software produced by Invision Power Services, Inc...			Yes ($75)
kusaba
MercuryBoard
miniBB
MyBB
NextBBS
NinkoBB
NovaBoard
Phorum Phorum Phorum is an open source message board system written in PHP.-History:In April 1998, Brian Moon developed three scripts that would meet the basic needs of . With 30 days of testing, the code was prepared enough to put into production. It was named WebThreads, though this name was later found to...
phpBB PhpBB phpBB is a popular Internet forum package written in the PHP scripting language. The name "phpBB" is an abbreviation of PHP Bulletin Board... 3
PunBB
Quicksilver Forums
Simple Machines 1 Simple Machines Forum Simple Machines Forum is a free Internet forum application. The software is written in PHP and uses a MySQL database backend, although multi-database support is being developed for version 2.0...
Simple Machines 2 Simple Machines Forum Simple Machines Forum is a free Internet forum application. The software is written in PHP and uses a MySQL database backend, although multi-database support is being developed for version 2.0...
Simply AJAX Forum System (SAFS) Simply AJAX Forum System (SAFS) Simply AJAX Forum System is an Internet forum application written in the PHP scripting language. It was originally built from the Simply Secure Forum System but was later revised and more features added.- History :...
Tritanium Bulletin Board	Planned (Version 2.0)
UBB.threads UBB.threads UBB.threads is an Internet forum software package originally written by Rick Baker. Written with PHP using a MySQL database backend, it is comparable to other forum software written in PHP....
UseBB
Vanilla
vBulletin VBulletin vBulletin is a proprietary Internet forum software produced by Jelsoft Enterprises and vBulletin Solutions, both subsidiaries of Internet Brands. It is written in PHP and uses a MySQL database server.-History:...
WhiteBoard
WoltLab Burning Board
XenForo XenForo XenForo is a commercial Internet forum software written in the PHP programming language using the Zend Framework. The software is developed by a team led by former vBulletin lead developers Kier Darby and Mike Sullivan. The first public beta release of XenForo was released in October 2010...
XMB
NitPick2011
	MySQL MySQL MySQL officially, but also commonly "My Sequel") is a relational database management system that runs as a server providing multi-user access to a number of databases. It is named after developer Michael Widenius' daughter, My...	PostgreSQL PostgreSQL PostgreSQL, often simply Postgres, is an object-relational database management system available for many platforms including Linux, FreeBSD, Solaris, MS Windows and Mac OS X. It is released under the PostgreSQL License, which is an MIT-style license, and is thus free and open source software...	MSSQL Microsoft SQL Server Microsoft SQL Server is a relational database server, developed by Microsoft: It is a software product whose primary function is to store and retrieve data as requested by other software applications, be it those on the same computer or those running on another computer across a network...	Oracle Oracle database The Oracle Database is an object-relational database management system produced and marketed by Oracle Corporation....	SQLite SQLite SQLite is an ACID-compliant embedded relational database management system contained in a relatively small C programming library. The source code for SQLite is in the public domain and implements most of the SQL standard...	Firebird Firebird (database server) Firebird is an open source SQL relational database management system that runs on Linux, Windows, and a variety of Unix. The database forked from Borland's open source edition of InterBase in 2000, but since Firebird 1.5 the code has been largely rewritten ....

Comparison of Internet forum software (PHP)

General information

Features

Data storage

See also