Forum Software Roundup

The ‘forum' or ‘discussion board' plays a major part on most successful Websites, providing a place for regular visitors to discuss topics the site covers. This creates a community and adds ‘stickiness' to your site, giving people an incentive to come back time and time again. Take a look at the many hundreds of thousands of Websites with forums, and you'll see that various systems are employed to provide the discussion board features – posting, voting, private messaging, and thread categories, all of which play a part in the standard feature list for the big forum systems.

In this article, I'll download, install and set up 5 of the biggest and more popular forum applications.

I've chosen the systems based on the lists at Hotscripts.com, and my own past experience and knowledge. I have only chosen free systems, as that it is what most Website owners use, and because of the difficulty involved in acquiring copies of paid for systems for review. As a consequence of this approach, I've had to leave out the extremely popular vBulletin. I have also chosen PHP, ASP and CGI systems to give you as wide a choice as possible as you decide which system you want to go for.

The following applications are included in this review. Each is freely available for download from its associated Website:

• phpBB - PHP
• Invision Power Board- PHP
• Snitz - ASP
• Web Wiz Forums - ASP
• IkonBoard - CGI

I'll use the same process to review each system:

1. I'll download, extract and upload the files to my Web space.
   
2. I'll run through the installation scripts.
   
3. I'll browse the configuration settings and features.

I will be commenting on a range of different criteria for the applications, which will allow me to come to a final conclusion and present an overall mark in the summary.

phpBB

http://www.phpbb.com

phpBB, the system that powers the forums on my own Website, has been available for quite a time. Version 2.0.x has come a very long way since 1.0.0 was released back in December 2000. With developments in the PHP scripting language and the addition of various features, phpBB now has a very extensive feature listing which includes a very intuitive templates (Styles) system based around the Smarty system.

It offers support for all major databases, including MySQL, MSSQL, and even MS Access databases. As well as these essential features, it offers strong security, polling, BBCode Tags for formatting, user groups and permissions systems, as well as avatars, signatures, profile options, and moderation and administration facilities.

Because of the nature of free software, some forums do not come with free support. However, a post in the phpbb.com forums will usually attract an answer within a few hours -- dedicated support team members are always on hand, and enthusiastic members are always willing to help at no extra cost. That said, you should be aware that no paid support is available, so if nobody knows the answer to your question, then you're stuck.

phpBB is extremely fast and comes with optional caching tools to make it even faster. It's based around PHP, is completely open source, and is available for free with no restrictions. This allows you to easily integrate it into your own Website and develop styles and modifications -- of which there are hundreds, most freely available for download. The original subSilver style that is available by default with phpBB is one of the best default styles of all the forum systems, and they even provide you with the Photoshop .psd files so you can modify that style.

The administration control panel, when compared to those offered within the other applications, is phpBB's weak point. You can configure every option in phpBB here, however, the system doesn't offer the standard features of action logging, the advanced mailing lists, and backup tools that the other systems have. There is also no way to add new profile options without modification, nor can you create your own post icons or forum icons. Visitor statistics reporting is limited to an average number of users and posts, which compares poorly when compared to the stats reports provided by some of the other systems. You can, however, customise the look of the panel to make it match your main forum style.

The development team at phpBB have not added many new features to 2.0.x since it was released. They've appeared only to fix bugs or security problems (of which there were very few), and seem to be reserving all the new features – features that are now standard on other forum applications -- for the upcoming phpbb2.2. This system is at Milestone 2 (of 4) but many of the major features are already working. However, as this version hasn't yet been released, I can't review it here. You can download a CVS of the current version at the development site area51.phpbb.com.

The installation of phpBB is very simple. The download is only 657kb as a .zip file (.gzip is available). However, extracting the file increases the size to over 2mb, which you have to upload to your Web space. Once you've uploaded all the files, browse to the directory you uploaded the files to, and wait as the installation script automatically loads up. The installation consists of 2 screens. First, you have to enter basic details about your database and the default username and password as well as some location settings. The second installation screen tells you that the database tables have been created.

You then need to complete the installation by uploading the config.php file that was created for you by the script -- you can simply let the install do it for you if you prefer. Once you've done this, you need to remove 2 directories before being allowed to access the forums. You are then presented with your brand new blank forum.

Overall, phpBB is an extremely good system that is very popular. It has all the features you would probably need to maintain an active forum, but it offers none of the standard “extras" that, while not essential, are useful. The huge community is invaluable if you get stuck and the number of styles and modifications available will allow you to change the software to suit your site and requirements.

Summary

Language: PHP
Database Support: MySQL, PostgreSQL, MSSQL, MS Access
Modifications/Styles Available: Hundreds

Overall: 8/10
Pros: Very easy to use, nice default style, lots of styles and modifications
Cons: Admin panel lacking in ‘standard' features