Forum Software Reviews

Operating System is the core piece where your forum can be installed. Generally, a dependency to a specifical OS came from the web server the forum software support. For example, Microsoft IIS can only be installed on a Windows OS, while Apache can be installed on nearly all operating systems.

The web server totally depends from the technologies used by your forum software. For example, ASP runs under Microsoft IIS, PHP and Python script languages can be installed on every web server (but are generally used with an Apache server).

The development language correspond to the technology that the forum software use. We can separate the existing technologies in two side. The first one is composed of compiled languages, like Java, CGI Bin ( which includes C and every language you want), and .NET.

The database program will store the data of your forum. These datas need to be fully accessible as fast as possible if you want your web site be displayed very quickly.

Generally, forum softwares are, in the point of view of a Database systems, very small applications which do not require important disk space and a highly optimized schemas.

List browsers that are known to be compatible with this forum software.

User agent needs to support the following technologies.

If enabled, the software is translated in several languages, and can be used by users with different languages at the same time.

Everybody knows these little cute images that we can found in every instant messaging program and in some web sites. This option is generally provided with forum softwares, but can be volontary forgotten if the software wants to be fast and easily readable.

This feature is generally useful for technical forums that generally need files attachments with posted messages. It avoids users to first upload to their own FTP server and then link these files to their message.

Here are examples of existing posts forms.

Here are examples of possible posts formats.

Private messages are a interested features if you want that users of your forum discuss privately without sharing their email addresses (to avoid Spam bots). The private messages management generally looks like a webmail, and new private messages notifications (this time to the user email) can be activated, to be sure the user will receive and read its messages.

Instant Messaging feature is not really widespread but can be interested if you want to let forum users to directly chat without posting to the forum.

Some moderators generally disagree conversations that users can have on a specifical thread, mainly if the talks has no direct link with the original subject. The instant messaging feature can be a good solution to this problem, because users will prefer use it rather than the asynchronous talks in specifical threads.

This feature allows any forum user to create a poll, enclosed with the new thread he wants to create. Other users can vote on this poll, and then argue about results.

Here is a list of existing remote access.

The user profile allows the user to modify its personal information and even sometimes customize the forum for his account. For example, administrators can activate several themes that users can select to change the look of the forum.

Email notifications option helps forum users to stay informed about new posts or new threads. When a modification occurs, the forum automatically send mails to people who request for.

These kind of filters can protect young user against coarseness from some users by replacing these words by stars (i.e.: *****) or by simply removing them.

Plugins are additional files that webmaster can add to its default forum installation. These plugins (or modifications / mods) adds features that are not supported by default by the forum. For example, it can add image upload to user messages, add administration options,... Some forum software greatly uses the mods architecture by providing a poor featured forum, which can be easily improved by tons of plugins.

Plugins can be really interested if a webmaster would like to improve forum interactivity or integration with its website. Generally, you can find a list of existing plugins on the official website of the forum software.

Themes are packages, or even simple files that the forum administrator can add to its default forum installation. These themes can then be selected to totally change the layout and the look and feel of the forum.

This information lists all blog and CMS softwares that can fully integrate a specified forum.

By integration, we mean that there is only one user base, the log in process must be the same (when a user is connected to the forum, it is automatically logged on the blog or CMS, and respectively)

What are the softwares that could integrate their existing accounts into your forum.

By limitating possible actions of new members with a minimum number of interesting posts, it ensures that a user will not spam with private messages other members, create stupid polls or access to some important forum categories (announcements, community news,...) The signature or the WWW address fields (where many members love to put their own website) could even follow the same rules, and be displayed only after, for example, 10 valid posts.

This option is useful for webmaster who wants to allow non logged users to post messages to their forum. This can be however dangerous if the forum is being attacked by spam bots.

User banishment is an option that allows administrators remove posting rights to users that do not respect the rules of the community. This is also really useful if you are not sure that a user has only subscribed to promote its own website or spam the users of your community.

This information is just for advanced webmasters who would like to know the inner technology used by a forum software. A template engine is in charge of rendering the website and merge the datas with the current theme (in fact the layout of the forum).

Possible HTML and XHTML norms.

The forum software could be compatible with the currently CSS norms.

Existing Levels of Accessibility.

If the software respects norms, then links on W3C images (i.e. : of the review must not return errors.

If the software respects norms, then links on W3C images (i.e. : of the review must not return errors.