phpBB or SMF

December 10, 2005 10:13 AM

phpBB or SMF for a new forum? Or something else?

I'm not trying to stir up a Windows vs. Unix type debate but am interested in your thoughts and experiences, either as an administrator or user.

Personally, I have run some phpBB boards, and overall have been ok with them, but found that (1) the board is not very flexible in regard to moderator or superuser privileges, and (2) phpBB's that aren't upgraded in step with the patches seem to attract vandals (don't even get me started on phpNuke).

I'm trying SMF and like the flexibility, but I seem to get random 415 "Server Temporarily Unavailable" messages accessing the board from certain computers but not others; I'm thinking it's related to one computer having a login cookie and not another. Still, though, SMF triggering an Apache error like that is bad bad bad.

posted by chef_boyardee to computers & internet (13 comments total)

Vanilla is looking pretty good.
posted by Caviar at 10:23 AM on December 10, 2005

IPB is also highly thought-of.
posted by Gator at 10:31 AM on December 10, 2005

Vanilla is great if you can get around it being structured unlike pretty much every other only board you've ever used.

Otherwise, IPB is solid.

Hurrah for double-seconds!
posted by Remy at 10:58 AM on December 10, 2005

If there's any way you could get your hands on a vBulletin 2.something release, thats the way to go. I assume there's probably unupgraded licenses floating around, and vBulletin used to be, imo, the best forum software around. Version 3 (and maybe 4 by now?) was so bloated that it was about 10x slower and 10x harder to administrate.

IPB used to be good, when it was free, but I don't think I'd ever pay for that, especially now that the price is up there with vBulletin for something that doesn't even compare (again, imo).
posted by devilsbrigade at 10:59 AM on December 10, 2005

A board which I'm involved in has recently migrated from PHPBB to SMF.

Features like moderation logging, fine grained permissions, and nested forums prompted the change. Most of these things could have been added to PHPBB via addons but that would have worsened the already risky monthly patch that PHPBB sometimes needs.

The biggest problems we've had with SMF have ironically been the moderation system area. It doesn't look like SMF can show ordinary users which usergroups are moderators for a particular board in the same way as PHPBB does.
The report this post feature also seems to just email admins. This is kind of annoying because we have over 50 Boards within the forum mostly moderated by different usergroups. This will probably not be an issue if you have a less eccentric setup.
posted by Olli at 11:47 AM on December 10, 2005

I've used Vanilla, IPB and phpBB.

Vanilla is a very weird system to get used to - it's not a traditional forum style at all.

phpBB always seemed a bit amateur to me, compared to IPB. I haven't used it in about 6 months, so things may have changed, but especially from an admin perspective it wasn't as powerful or as easy to use as I would've liked.

IPB is the best of the three I've used heavily. It just worked. No major advantage that I could see, but it just seemed a better package overall.
posted by djgh at 4:16 PM on December 10, 2005

Another vote for IPB. phpBB is insecure garbage. It lacks sophistication and many features that real forums have had for years. I mentally groan when I am forced to use phpBB, because it just seems to amateurish. Other than the fact that it's free and has a crapload of skins/themes, I see no reason why it's used as much as it is.

And yes, when IPB was free those were the good days. They still have a free trial but it's encoded in a way that requires your server to have a php accelerator installed.

Still, if you're serious about the project, spend the money or otherwise acquire IPB, you won't be disappointed.
posted by Rhomboid at 4:38 PM on December 10, 2005

I'm currently a mod on a vbulletin forum, and find it much better than PHP. Haven't used any of the other software mentioned, but vbulletin does everything that I'd like it to do. Just my $.02
posted by shangomoons at 10:39 PM on December 10, 2005

FUD Forum is very highly regarded in the PHP developer community. It's less 'pretty' than phpBB, but from all accounts is a great deal more secure and written with administration / performance issues in mind.
posted by planetthoughtful at 11:16 PM on December 10, 2005

Other than the fact that it's free and has a crapload of skins/themes, I see no reason why it's used as much as it is.

I guess this was meant to be a rhetorical question, but if you stop and think about it, they're two very "good" reasons why people use phpBB. In other words, cost and presentation are obviously very important in many people's minds when choosing forum software.
posted by planetthoughtful at 11:19 PM on December 10, 2005

Yes, I guess that is kind of what I was trying to (poorly) say -- it does have those two very large plusses in its favor. To me however, its long list of deficiencies makes those two factors irrelevent.
posted by Rhomboid at 7:16 AM on December 11, 2005

i love the way vanilla is set up, however, phpBB is pretty solid for the forums ive set up, i am also a fan of phorum
posted by yeahyeahyeahwhoo at 8:27 AM on December 11, 2005

I'm a fan of SMF, been using it for a couple years on a site that gets around 2,000 posts a day. Updates and patches aren't frequent, and the update system works ok. I can't comment on the other choices, because I haven't used them.
posted by inthe80s at 7:15 AM on December 12, 2005