Forums (Bulletin Boards)

The barebones definition of a forum is the ability for people to start threads and reply to other people's threads. Someone posts a message which is visible to everyone, you read it and then have the option to post a reply which will also be visible to everyone, thus a discussion can build up without all users having to be online at the same time. However, most forum software provides considerably more than this.

Forum software can be broadly divided between those which allow visitors to post anonymously, and those which attribute posts to a registered username.

For username-based software, visitors register using a username and a password, and possibly an email address for validation purposes. In these types of forums, the members are often able to customise both how their posts display to others (for example avatars, user profiles and signatures) and how the board appears to them (such as different themes). Username-based software may provide for anonymity by allowing visitors to post without registration.

Anonymous forums may offer full anonymity or pseudonymity, but no registration. In order to provide the same set of features as registration-based forums, anonymous forums especially in Asia use a system of tripcodes, a system of authentication that does not require registration.

A forum administrator typically has the ability to edit, delete, move or otherwise modify any thread on the forum. These moderator privileges are often able to be delegated to other forum members. The ways in which the moderation system works depends on the board software - for example, they can be directly appointed by the board administrator or chosen by an automated process combined with meta-moderation (moderation of the moderators). The board software may also allow the administrator to create word filters, automated scripts which strip undesirable text from users' messages. Many other moderation systems exist and the board administrator is free to choose rules for their own forums.

Threads in a forum are either flat (posts are listed in chronological order) or threaded (each post is made in reply to a parent post). Sometimes, community members have a choice on how to display threads.


NOTE: Demos of the software below will soon be ready on our demo site.

phpBB

phpBB is a high powered, fully scalable, and highly customizable Open Source bulletin board package. phpBB has a user-friendly interface, simple and straightforward administration panel, and helpful FAQ. Based on the powerful PHP server language and your choice of MySQL, MS-SQL, PostgreSQL or Access/ODBC database servers, phpBB is the ideal free community solution for all web sites.

phpBB version 2 focuses on a professional-quality modular design, high security, multiple-language interface, support for a multitude of databases servers and complete layout customisation, all with a low execution overhead.

The security of phpBB has been disputed recently. Some people say that phpBB is an insecure product, while others say that it doesn't have more security problems than other forum systems. This can be argued, though, but the team has almost always responded fast and properly, trying to avoid future problems for board administrators.

phpBB is a widely popular Open Source forum that works well, have a simple user interface, can be customized and support many languages. Just the possibility to customize phpBB with skins/themes has made it very popular. There is a lot of skins/themes available, both commercial and for free. There are also a lot of modifications (mods) available and many language files.

 Development Status: Production/Stable.
 License: GNU General Public License (GPL).
 Operating System: Cross Platform.
 Environment: Web Environment.
 Author: phpBB Group.
 Available Languages: Africaans, Albanian, Amharic, Arabic, Asturian, Azerbaijani, Basque, Belarusian, Bosnian, Breton, Bulgarian, Catalan, Chinese (Simplified), Chinese (Traditional), Croatian, Czech, Danish, Dutch, Esperanto, English, Estonian, Farsi, Finnish, French, Frisian, Galician, German, German (Formal), Greek, Hebrew, Hungarian, Icelandic, Indonesian, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Kurdish, Lithuanian, Macedonian, Mongolian, Mongolian (Latin), Norwegian (Bokmaal), Norwegian (Nynorsk), Polish, Portuguese, Portuguese (Brazil), Romanian, Russian, Sakha, Serbian, Serbian (Cyrillic), Slovakian, Slovenian, Spanish, Spanish (Argentina), Swedish, Tatarish, Thai, Turkish, Uighur, Ukrainian, Vietnamese, Welsh.
 Available Skins/Themes: -.
 Disk Space Required: - MB.
 Web Site: http://www.phpbb.com

PunBB

PunBB is a fast and lightweight PHP-powered discussion board. Its primary goals are to be faster, smaller and less graphically intensive as compared to other discussion boards. PunBB has fewer features than many other discussion boards, but is generally faster and outputs smaller, semantically correct XHTML-compliant pages.

PunBB is simple and fast, there is a rich community that develop different modifications (mods) to PunBB with which you can extend the functionality of PunBB. There is also a rich language support and you can change the look and feel with skins/themes (called styles by PunBB).

 Development Status: Production/Stable.
 License: GNU General Public License (GPL).
 Operating System: Cross Platform.
 Environment: Web Environment.
 Author: Rickard Andersson.
 Available Languages: Arabic, Bosnian, Bulgarian / Bulgarian (UTF-8), Catalan, Croatian (Hrvatski), Czech, Chinese (Simplified), Chinese (Traditional), Danish, Dutch, English, Estonian, Farsi, Finnish, French, German, Greek, Hebrew, Hungarian, Icelandic, Indonesian, Italian, Korean, Kurdish, Latvian, Lithuanian, Norwegian, Polish, Portuguese, Portuguese (Brazilian), Romanian, Russian, Serbian, Slovak, Slovenian, Spanish, Swedish, Turkish, Ukrainian, Vietnamese.
 Available Skins/Themes: -.
 Disk Space Required: - MB.
 Web Site: http://www.punbb.org

SMF (Simple Machines Forum)

Simple Machines Forum - SMF in short - is a free, professional grade software package that allows you to set up your own online community within minutes. Its powerful custom made template engine puts you in full control of the lay-out of your forum and with our unique SSI - or Server Side Includes - function you can let your forum and your website interact with each other.

SMF is designed to provide you with all the features you need while having an absolute minimal impact on the resources of the server. SMF is the next generation of forum software, and best of all it is and will always remain completely free!

You can change the look of your SMF-forum with skins/themes and add functions with modifications and hacks. SMF support many languages with language packs that can be downloaded from their web site.

 Development Status: Production/Stable.
 License: Other Free.
 Operating System: Cross Platform.
 Environment: Web Environment.
 Author: Simple Machines Team.
 Available Languages: Arabic, Brazilian (Portugese), Bulgarian, Catalan, Chinese (Simplified), Chinese (Traditional), Croatian, Danish, Dutch, English, Finnish, French, German, Greek, Hebrew, Hungarian, Norwegian, Persian, Polish, Portugese, Romanian, Russian, Spanish, Swedish, Thai, Turkish.
 Available Skins/Themes: -.
 Disk Space Required: - MB.
 Web Site: http://www.simplemachines.org

YaBB

YaBB (Yet another Bulletin Board) is a leading free forum software package that rivals any professional message board out there. It provides a real-time chat and support system for your visitors. While chat programs allow people to talk directly, you have to be on at the same time as others. With forum software like YaBB, you can talk any time, and everyone can join in the conversation! Build a community and get visitors to come back for interesting discussions, fun chit chat, or needed support without having to spend thousands of dollars.

YaBB is a free open source message board and instant messaging system written in Perl. YaBB doesn't use a third-party database management system, but instead its own flat file storage system. Modifications (usually using Boardmod) can be used to add new features to the forum.

YaBB is written in Perl but since it is very good forum software we decided to support YaBB and give you the opportunity to use YaBB. YaBB has many interesting features and can also be modified with addons/hacks as well it has a lot of skins/themes.

 Development Status: Production/Stable.
 License: GNU General Public License (GPL).
 Operating System: Cross Platform.
 Environment: Web Environment.
 Author: YaBB Development Team.
 Available Languages: Brazilian Portugese, Bulgarian, Chinese, Dutch, English, Finnish, German, Russian, Swedish.
 Available Skins/Themes: -.
 Disk Space Required: - MB.
 Web Site: http://www.yabbforum.com