Comparison: PhpBB 3 vs Simple Machines vs vBulletin 3.8

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PHP / MySQL:

Advanced Electron Forum

bbPress

Beehive Forum

Drupal Forum

Extreme Message Board

FluxBB

Fruit Show

FUDForum

IceBB

MesDiscussions

MiniBB

MyBB

Phorum

PhpBB 2

PhpBB 3

PunBB

Quicksilver Forums

SEO-Board

Simple Machines

UBB.threads

UltraBB

Unclassified NewsBoard

UseBB

Vanilla

vBulletin 3.8

vBulletin 4

Viscacha

WowBB

XennoBB

Java / JEE:

JavaBB

JForum

MVN Forum

Yazd

Hosted Forum:

Forumotion

Lefora

Nabble

Website Toolbox

ZetaBoards

Zoho Discussions

Microsoft .Net:

Yet Another Forum

Perl:

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Comparison Results	PhpBB 3	Simple Machines	vBulletin 3.8
Version	3.0.6	1.1.1	3.8.1
Last Release	Nov 17, 2009	December 01, 2009	January 27, 2009
License	GPL License	Custom License	Proprietary License
Price	Free	Free	$ 180
Live Demonstrations	Live Demonstration »	Live Demonstration »	Live Demonstration »
Resources	Official Website » \| Download »	Official Website » \| Download »	Official Website » \| Download »
Installation	Very Good	Good	Very Good
Administration	Good	Good	Good
Ergonomy	Very Good	Good	Very Good
Our Opinion	9/10	8/10	10/10
Users Opinion	8/10 (214 votes)	8/10 (200 votes)	5/10 (82 votes)
Server Requirements	PhpBB 3	Simple Machines	vBulletin 3.8
Operating System	Linux Windows Server 2003 Windows XP	Linux Windows Server 2003 Windows XP Solaris FreeBSD OpenBSD NetBSD Windows Server 2008 Mac OS	Linux Windows Server 2003 Windows XP Solaris FreeBSD OpenBSD NetBSD Windows Server 2008 Mac OS
Web Server	Apache 1.3 Apache 2.0/2.2 Microsoft IIS	Apache 1.3 Apache 2.0/2.2 Microsoft IIS Lighttpd Nginx	Apache 1.3 Apache 2.0/2.2 Microsoft IIS Lighttpd Nginx
Languages	PHP 4	PHP 4 PHP 5	PHP 5
Databases	MySQL Postgresql SQLite Microsoft SQL Server Oracle	MySQL	MySQL
Browsers & Clients Requirements	PhpBB 3	Simple Machines	vBulletin 3.8
Compatible Browsers	Mozilla Firefox 3 Mozilla Firefox 2 Mozilla Firefox 1 Opera Safari Konqueror Internet Explorer 7 Internet Explorer 6 Chrome Mozilla SeaMonkey	All	Mozilla Firefox 3 Mozilla Firefox 2 Mozilla Firefox 1 Opera Safari Konqueror Internet Explorer 7 Internet Explorer 6 Chrome Mozilla SeaMonkey
Technologies or plugins	HTML and Javascript	HTML and Javascript	HTML and Javascript HTML and AJAX
Localization	Yes	Yes	Yes
Languages		Albanian Arabic Bangla Bulgarian Catalan Chinese Simplified Chinese Traditional Croatian Czech Danish Dutch English English British Finnish French Galician German German Informal Greek Hebrew Hindi Hungarian Indonesian Italian Japanese Kurdish Kurmanji Kurdish Sorani Macedonian Malay Norwegian Persian Polish Portuguese Brazilian Portuguese Romanian Russian Serbian Cyrillic Serbian Latin Slovak Spanish Spanish Latin Swedish Thai Turkish Ukrainian Urdu Uzbek latin Vietnamese The full list is available at SMF Language Packs page.	vBulletin provides a localization features that could virtually make it work in any languages... if you translate it. Translations packages are of course also available.
Forum Threads & Posts	PhpBB 3	Simple Machines	vBulletin 3.8
Forum Style	Flat	Flat	Flat/Threaded
Emoticons	Yes	Yes	Yes
Attachments	Yes	Yes	Yes
Thread Icons	Yes	Yes	Yes
Post Editing Form	Rich Text Editor Preview Button	Formatting Buttons Preview Button	WYSIWYG Editor Preview Button
Post Editing Format	HTML BBCode	HTML BBCode	Plain BBCode
Forum Organization	Forum Categories URL Redirection Forum Sub Sections	Forum Categories URL Redirection Forum Sub Sections	Forum Categories URL Redirection Forum Sub Sections Trashcan Forum
Sticky Threads	Yes	Yes	Yes
Spell Checking	Unknown	Unknown	No
Detect Duplicate Threads	No	No	Yes
Shadow Topics	No	Yes	Yes
Post Quoting	Yes	Yes	Yes
Post Rating	Yes	Yes	Yes
Syntax Highlighting	Unknown	Plugin	Plugin

Key Features & Additional Tools	PhpBB 3	Simple Machines	vBulletin 3.8
Bundled Softwares	No.	Portal	Website Home Page Blog Bug Tracker Projet Manager Pictures Album Manager
Private Messages	Yes	Yes	Yes
Instant Messaging	Yes	No	Yes
Calendar	Yes	Yes	Yes
Poll Creation	Yes	Yes	Yes
Users List	Yes	Yes	Yes
Online Users List	Yes	Yes	Yes
RSS/Atom Syndication	RSS 2.0	RSS 2.0	RSS 2.0
Remote Control	No.	No.	No.
Friendly URLs	Yes	Yes	No
User Profiles & Options	PhpBB 3	Simple Machines	vBulletin 3.8
User Profile	Yes	Yes	Yes
User Avatars	Yes	Yes	Yes
User Signatures	Yes	Yes	Yes
User Ranks	Yes	Yes	Yes
Unread Topics	Yes	Yes	Yes
Bookmark Threads	Unknown	Yes	Yes
Quick Reply Box	No	Yes	Yes
Email Notifications	Yes	Yes	Yes
Export private messages	Yes	Plugin	Yes
Payment Subscriptions	No	Plugin	Yes
Security & Spam Protection	PhpBB 3	Simple Machines	vBulletin 3.8
Captcha Protection	Yes	Yes	Yes
Words Filtering	Yes	Yes	Yes
Guest Posting	Yes	Yes	Yes
Customization	PhpBB 3	Simple Machines	vBulletin 3.8
Plugins	Yes	Yes	Yes
Themes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Cache	Unknown	Yes	Yes
Custom BBCodes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Custom Emoticons	Yes	Yes	Yes
Custom Thread Icons	Unknown	Yes	Yes
Custom User Profile Fields	Yes	Yes	Yes
CMS / Blog Bridges	No.	Drupal Joomla Mambo WordPress e107 XOOPs iGaming CMS	Drupal Joomla
User Accounts integration	ldap	facebook-connect	No.
Template Engine	No.	Custom Template Engine	Custom Template Engine
Administration & Support	PhpBB 3	Simple Machines	vBulletin 3.8
Installation Method	Installation Wizard	Installation Wizard	Installation Wizard
Upgrade Method	Upgrade Wizard	Upgrade Wizard	Upgrade Wizard
Updates Notifications	true	true	true
Forum Migration	Unknown	Yes	Unknown
Supported Forum Migration		Invision Power Board PhpBB vBulletin YaBB / YaBB SE Many additional converters are available on the SMF Official Converter Topic.
User Management	User Groups	User Groups	User Groups
User Banishment	Yes	Yes	Yes
Mass Mailing	Yes	Yes	Yes
Move Threads	Yes	Yes	Yes
Close/Lock Threads	Yes	Yes	Yes
Backup Database	Yes	Yes	Yes
Prune Database	Yes	Yes	Yes
Restore Database	Yes	Yes	Yes
Statistics	Yes	Yes	Yes
Error/Notice Log Viewer	Yes	Yes	No
Scheduled Tasks	Yes	No	Yes

W3C Norms/Accessibility	PhpBB 3	Simple Machines	vBulletin 3.8
HTML / XHTML	XHTML 1.0 Strict	XHTML 1.0 Transitional	XHTML 1.0 Transitional
Stylesheets (CSS)	CSS 2	CSS 2	CSS 2
Accessibility (WAI)	AA	AA	AA
UTF-8 Support	Yes	Yes	Yes
W3C Norms	Yes	Yes	Yes