phpBB and SMF are two of the most popular free bulletin board applications. If you are looking for a free forum application, you will most probably end up using one of the two.
Here we will discuss the pros and cons of each one.
- SMF:
pros:
- the installation/uninstallation of additional mods is done through an automatic package manager
- supports multiple languages at once
- option to display the query count per page
- full or partial word censoring
- cookie and session based authentication
- spell checker
cons:
- does not support custom BBCode buttons
- no custom profile fields
- no user rating
- no search flood control
- no customizable private message filters
- phpBB:
pros:
- has a lot of free mods/plugins/templates
- supports MySQL, MSSQL and PostgreSQL database engines
- search flood control
- password protected forums
- sorting of posts
- private message filters which can be customized
cons:
- no automatic mod installer
- the installation of some of the additional mods may require more advanced programming skills
- no HTML in posts
- no user rating
- no RSS
If you are ready to take your discussion board to the next level and purchase a commercial forum application, then our staff will help you with your choice.