Top 3 Free Forum Software Breakdown

Not sure what to use on your forum? Don’t want to pay for some fancy scripts such as VB or IPB?

Out of the many free forum software, three of them are often considered the best because of their popularity, customization options, support, etc., and they are phpBB, SMF, and MyBB.

phpBB

Overall: 9/10

phpBB has all the good features from paid scripts stored into itself. It has a really neat Admin Control Panel which you can access to the main settings (Manage users, Manage groups) within one click.

The permission system of phpBB, I gotta say, is the most powerful part of it. Although it might seem annoying at first, but you might just realize its power after using it for a while. It gives you full ability to alter a person’s permission in anyway. Much much much more improved than phpBB 2, and other scripts as well.

Support: 10/10

I have been using phpBB for quite a while now. One of the things i have always appreciated is their support. They have a really helpful support team on their forums, and basically all your question toward phpBB can be solved by the community wihtin minutes.

Customization – Themes: 8/10

It’s not that hard to create a theme in phpBB. It came with two ready-to-use template out of the box – Subsilver2 and Prosilver. Most of the themes out there are based on these themes. Also, it uses template tags such as <!– IF S_USER_LOGGED_IN –> Instead of php in their tempalte files, so you don’t have to worry about having to mess with php codes.

The only downside is that it uses a dataabse system to store the template data, as it needs to parse through all the tags. So everytime you make a change, it will not be effective immediately until you purge the cache and/or refresh the styles.

Customization – Mods/Plugins: 7/10

Mods in phpBB are both good and bad. The good thing is that a large variety of MODs are available in the MOD forums, however most of them require manual edits of the files. Heh, no pain no gain, right?

Total: 34/40

SMF

Overall: 6/10

SMF has not had an official new major version release for a long time, as they are still working on SMF 2.0. Because of this, many of its features are still in 2004 standards. However, it has enough features for an average board already.

Support: 10/10

By glancing over its forums, most enquiries get answered pretty fast.

Customization – Themes: 7/10

Similar to phpBB, it seems most of the themes are based on the default style. Themeing in SMF is slightly harder than phpBB since it requires PHP edits too. I don’t beleive SMF themes need to be parsed, so results of you edits of your themes most likely will appear immediately.

Customization – Mods/Plugins: 10/10

With over 150 Mods in its mod database, I am sure you can find some that you like to enhance SMF’s ability. Also, the package installer is one of the selling points of SMF, which edits the files automatically without any manual edits.

Total: 33/40

MyBB

Overall: 9/10

Being a new forum script, MyBB can still definitely be compared to the “veteran” scripts above. It has some really great features, and it seems to immitate VB. The Admin Control Panel is organized in tabs, and although there aren’t that many quick links like those in phpBB, you can still quickly access to various setting sin MyBB.

Support: 8/10

Hmm.. it seems that the topics aren’t replied in a really fast speed. I just saw some topicsi that started a few days ago but still unanswered. Other than that, there is still an IRC Channel for people to ask questions. However, I am not sure about the efficiency though.

Customization – Themes: 8/10

Wow. How did it do that? I tried downloading a myBB theme file, and found that there is NO html or css files at all, but only images and an xml file. On a deeper look, I found the css attributes and html codes are hidden inside the XML. For some that do not care about the styles, this is good, but for others that want to customize it a bit, it may be a little bit harder.

Customization – Mods/Plugins: 10/10

There are about 160 mods available in different categories on MyBB Mods page. Like SMF, there is no manual edits required for plugins, and all is done automatically. The MyBB mod system was claimed to be the “one of the most advanced plugin systems found in bulletin boards today”

Total: 35/40

Conclusion

phpBB has most features working out of the box, while SMF and MyBB has a really simple plugin system. The choice is yours to make =)

If you have any more further questions for these forum scripts, feel free to ask us =)