AdminSphere

At Admin Sphere, we have evaluated three popular forum scripts. One could say these represent 3 of the big 4 general purpose packages available on the market. The 4th is Invision Power Board (IPB), but we don’t have a license for it at the moment. To help people who are deciding which software to use for a new forum, we compare phpBB, SMF, and vB with each other to determine what features each package offeres and what features are lacking.

Here is a quick introduction of the 3 forum boards we will be discussing.

phpBB- This is a GPL license based board that has been around for many years. The current version is 3.0, which was released on December 2007. phpBB.com

SMF- Simple Machines Forum is a free forum software package that uses it’s own license. It is the new kid on the block comparatively, having been started  much later than phpBB and vBulletin. Because of a rich feature set and a growing modifications community, it has gained popularity quite quickly. simplemachines.org

vBulletin- This is one of the big 2 commercial forum packages, the other being Invision Power Board. vB has a huge feature set, a very large and active mod community, and is used by many of the largest boards on the Internet.vBulletin.com

In this comparison, we will look at the packages and examine what it has that is unique and what it lacks compared to the other boards.

phpBB 2- This is the most basic of the 3 forums as it hasn’t added many new features since it’s initial release several years ago. It can do what any basic forum can do and if one hasn’t seen vBulletin or SMF, one could probably be satisfied with it’s capabilities. The one standout with phpBB is that there is an active mod community that has created mods that do not exists for the other forums. Previous versions of phpBB had security flaws that were exploited, but the latest versions do not have any known security holes so long as HTML is turned off.

Version 3 adds many more features from version 2, including sub-forums, better permissions system, attachments, custom profile fields, post moderation, better moderating tools, and a host of many features that bring it closer to the top forum packages available.

Benefits: phpBB is free and has a GPL license so any mod for must also be GPL, thus making it likely to be free. phpBB also has a large number of templates and mods created for it. phpBB was made for speed and it is quite fast. It is also easy to mod if one is interested in creating their own functionality. It has the largest number of community based mods: Album mod, Blog mod (In Beta), Friends/Myspace-like mod (Beta), and others. Many of these mods add functionality to phpBB that do not currently exist in SMF or vBulletin either by default or in a mod. It is used in many large forums, validating that it can scale well.

Drawbacks: Fewer features compared to the others. Support on phpBB.com is strictly volunteer and is hit or miss depending on the question asked and who happens to see it. It does not have sub-forums and attachments by default. Installing mods is time consuming compared to the other 2. It’s a popular target for hackers.

Update:that version 3 addresses many of the concerns of phpBB 2, including sub-forums and attachments.

Conclusion: In reality, most forums will suffice with phpBB. It has a large number of templates, is easy to modify, and has plenty of mods to make it as powerful as the other packages. In particular, the sub-forums mod called Categories Heirarchy turns phpBB into a very powerful solution.

SMF- This forum package is a successor to the php version of YABB and is feature rich. It stands somewhere between phpBB 2 and vBulletin in the number of features it contains. They have a good reputation for updating security releases.

Benefits: It uses AJAX for some elements to make page loading faster. It has attachments and sub-forums. It features a package manager to install mods easily. SMF includes a file that contains functions which allows outside programs to interface with the SMF forum libraries, making it easier to integrate the forum with a website. The staff is helpful at simplemachines.org. It plugs into Joomla well with some modifications. (Update: as of the moment, the Joomla bridge is not available due to legal issues).

Drawbacks: It is missing some key features even compared to phpBB, such as e-mail through the forum and group moderators. Not as many mods as the other forum packages. It has the fewest community based mods (i.e. profile enhancements) and the fewest overall mods compared to phpBB and vBulletin.

Conclusion: SMF is probably the most full-featured of any free forum package. The latest version had a shortage of good templates for a while, but that is quickly changing. The SMF package manager is one of it’s best features as it allows users to easily install most mods with just a few clicks in most cases. Note that for non-default templates, you may be required to manually add some code since most mods are written only for the default template. The big drawback of SMF is that it has fewer mods than phpBB or vBulletin.

Update: Version 2 of SMF plans to add features such as post moderation, a WYSIWIG editor, custom profile fields, an improved PM system, a warning system and other features.

vBulletin- vBulletin is considered the industry standard for forum software. It is feature packed and has an excellent reputation for security.

Benefits: Massive amount of features. AJAX, attachments, sub-forums, post control, WYSIWIG editor, plug-in manager, and many more. Future versions will include an enhanced user profile page, bringing social networking features to vBulletin run forums. Their forum at vBulletin.com is helpful and vBulletin.orgis their repository for most of the freely available mods. Using vBulletin in some ways legitimizes the seriousness of a website as it is used by many large professional websites. vB appears to be the most SEO friendly.

Drawbacks: Because of the number of features it has, some consider it bloated. The Admin Control Panel has many features, but can be confusing due to the many navigation options. It’s more expensive than the other 2. Not as well integrated with Content Management Packages such as Joomla as the other 2. It has many mods, but many are paid extras whereas almost all phpBB and SMF mods are free.

Conclusion: Easily the most feature rich of the three. vBulletin is used by many professional websites and for good reason. A default installation will probably satisfy most user’s needs, but it also has an extensive amount of mods and has perhaps the largest number of available templates of any forum package.

Overall Conclusion: When picking a software package, look at all of its features and determine if it can do what your forum needs to do. Although vBulletin has the most features and is the industry standard when it comes to forums, phpBB or SMF may be sufficient if it has the features you need. But if you need something that only vBulletin has, get vBulletin. Many people will look at the vBulletin price and decide to go with the other two, but this may be a mistake if one really is serious about making a good website. It’s best to compare the software based on how it can meet your needs, not based on the price. If you pick a package because it is less expensive and it proves unable to do the things you need it to do, you will end up either paying someone to add the extra features, upgrading to the paid forum anyways, or you will end up crippling your sites’ experience to your users.

I agree with your assessment but one thing which SMF could really use is an ignore feature built into the core software. I know there is a mod but it conflicts with some of the others. In this area, VB has SMF beaten.