Forum application comparison: phpBB vs SMF

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 Invision Power Board vs vBulletin comparison will help you with your choice.

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