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.

J2EE Server can be installed on each OS where Java is supported, .NET technology is supported by default by Microsoft IIS server, but can be easily installed on a Linux box using Mono Project and Apache (see mod_mono for more information).

You should choose an very secured operating system because the machine hosting your web site will be fully accessible from the entire world, so a Linux server is generally a good and cheap choice.

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 J2EE technology needs a Java Application Server, containing a Web container (Tomcat for example) and a Persistence API (EJB, Hibernate,...) These servers are generally harder to install but these solutions matches enterprise level requirements.

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.

Compiled languages

The compiled languages have some advantages like speed improvement because the server does not need to parse and analyze the content of a file to execute its logical. The compiled application can be directly executed, without any test. These technologies have however a weakness because it introduces a new step in website development : the compilation process. This process can be really easy, like this : compiler-command file-to-compile, but it's generally harder for webmasters who only want to modify one little part of a file.

Scripting languages

These languages are generally really more used than the previous one, even if the using of this kind of technologies can slow down a little bit the software. The most known examples of script languages are Perl, Python, Ruby, and of course, PHP.

If you want to create a theme of a plugin for the software you will install, the scripting languages will make smoother their developments. To conclude, just a little percent that will show you that scripting is generally more used : nearly 80% of existing forum software solutions use the PHP languages.

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.

You should also choose a database that is really fast reading because your website will be easily 100 times more consulted compared to posting. MySQL is one of the most used database in the Web sphere, because it is small, reliable and of course free.

Some forum softwares do not mandatory need an underlying database, by storing their information in XML files (they will then generally use the XPath querying) or any other file based storage. Another specifical case is the SQLite API, which is not a real database program although its uses the SQL query langage but do not need any separated service to access its datas. In fact, it allows any program to incorporate its own database, simply stored in one file and accessing via an API. This system can be applied to the Web and is generally very useful for people who do not have access to a database in their hosting solution.

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.

Here are examples of possible posts formats.

Here are examples of existing posts forms.

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.

The attachment can be images or patches for example, for developers or designers forums.

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.

Here is a list of existing remote access.

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.

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.

The syndication feature is really interested for people who would like to stay informed about any modifications or new posts of a forum, without be connected on it. The syndication uses an XML language to simplify and resume activity and news information on a website.

By adding a syndication file to its agregator software, a user can easily follows hundred of websites from one place. There are a lot of available agregator on the Net, like Feedreader, RSS Bandit, Akregator (Linux only),...

For more information about Syndication, do not hesitate to consult its related Wikipedia Article.

Here are examples of RDF languages.

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.

Captcha protections aims to avoid spam bots by asking to the user a Turing test to be sure he is a real user, and not a bot.

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.

These features is generally provided in all forum softwares, because it helps webmasters to have a unique skinned website, or make the forum looks like the relative web site.

Some software also allows each registered users to choose the theme he prefers.

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

You will generally find more information about forum integration by looking for a plugin of your CMS or blog solution. Some plugins contains a full installation of a forum software, but some others allow you to bind two existing installation. This solution is recommended, because you can update separately your softwares if one of them contains security issues.

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).

The template engines use a logical language to format and display datas, and this language is different in these engines. This information can determine the forum software choice if the webmaster has a preference for a template engine if it is known that a template engine is more powerful or faster than others.

Some forum softwares do not have many users management options, and this can really change your decision, because you will need for example multiple administrators access, or dedicated moderators on some parts of the 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.

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.

What are the key points and major differences that make this forum software unique.