MyBB Review - Forum Features & Requirements

|
Previous Page 1 of 4 Next
Web Site MyBB Website
Download MyBB
Sponsored by MyBB Group.
Current version 1.4.13 (April 19th, 2010).
Released under GPL License.
Price Free.

What is MyBB?

While ago considered as an outsider, comparing to the big boards of Internet, MyBB is more and more popular, mostly for three of its qualities: simplicity, extensive administration panel and powerful plugin system. MyBB is a based on the PHP/MySQL technology, and is a free open source forum software, and has included AJAX and Web 2.0 features just-as-needed. Nothing too much heavy, but really practical for an everyday usage.

MyBB History

MyBB was originally developed on the base of XMB and DevBB, and the official development started 8 years ago, in 2002. It today counts more than 140,000 lines of code, and a dynamic community of about 28,000 members.

Review Updates

  • April 24, 2010: Complete additional features that were missing. Update to MyBB 1.4.13.
  • December 2, 2009: New tutorial, MyBB URL Rewritting.
  • November 27, 2009: Migrate to MyBB 1.4.9.

Recommended Average Size of a Community

This chart represents the recommendation of an average community size hosted with MyBB.

MyBB
Community Size Average

Server & Clients Requirements

Server Requirements
Server Technology
The technology on which this forum software is based on.
PHP
Operating Systems
Systems supporting this software.
LinuxWindows Server 2003
Windows XPSolaris
FreeBSDOpenBSD
NetBSDWindows Server 2008
Mac OS
Web Servers
Web servers host the forum software.
  • Apache 1.3
  • Apache 2.0/2.2
  • Microsoft IIS
  • Lighttpd
Languages
Development language.
  • PHP 4
  • PHP 5
Databases
Systems that store forum datas.
  • MySQL
  • Postgresql
  • SQLite
Browsers & Clients Requirements
Compatible Browsers
List of compatible browsers.
Mozilla FirefoxInternet Explorer
Google ChromeOpera
Apple SafariKonqueror
Mozilla SeaMonkey
Required Plugins/Technologies
What the user needs exactly to use this forum correctly.
Javascript, AJAX.
Languages supported by MyBB.
Yes Yes.
Supported Languages:
Arabic Arabic Chinese (Simplified) Chinese (Simplified)
Chinese (Traditional) Chinese (Traditional) Czech Czech
Dutch Dutch English (American) English (American)
English (British) English (British) Estonian Estonian
French French German German
Greek Greek Hungarian Hungarian
Persian Persian Polish Polish
Portuguese (Brazilian) Portuguese (Brazilian) Russian Russian
Serbian Serbian Spanish Spanish
Turkish Turkish Urdu Urdu

Go to the Translation List.

The installation on a SQLite database is really intuitive and easy for people who do not want to install any RDBMS like MySQL or PostgreSQL

Forum Threads & Posts

Forum Threads
Forum Style
General appearance of the topics.
Flat
Thread Icons
An icon that identifies the type of a topic.
Yes Yes
Forum Organization
Organize your forum with categories, sections,...
  • Forum Categories
  • URL Redirection Forum
  • Sub Sections
Topic Tags
Could topics be organized by tags?
- -
Sticky Threads
Sticky threads stay at top of a section or a forum.
Yes Yes
Spell Checking
Posts and topics are spelled checked with a dictionary.
No No
Related Threads
List additional topics that may be related to the current one.
- -
Detect Duplicate Threads
Duplicate Threads are detected before creation.
No No
Hidden Topics
Some topics are only accessible to a limited list of users.
Yes Yes
Posts
Message Editing Form
Details about the manner to post messages.
  • Rich Text Editor
  • Formatting Buttons
  • Preview Button
Emoticons Yes Yes
Attachments
Attach files (screenshot, archive,...) with a post.
Yes Yes Syntax Highlighting
Posted Source Code is formatted using colors.
Plugin Plugin
Image Attachment
How images can be attached and displayed in message posts.
  • Upload via Classic Attachments. Images are all at the end of the post.
  • Use BBCode or HTML. Need to type the URL of an already hosted image.
Post Editing Format
Markup Language (HTML, Wiki, BBCode,...).
  • Plain
  • HTML
  • BBCode
Post by Email
Post to a topic directly from your email box.
No No
Message Rating
Users can rate the quality of other users posts.
Yes Yes Message Quoting
Quoting a post helps readers understand who answers who.
Yes Yes
Announcements
Administrators can post announcements that are displayed everywhere in the forum. It is even more powerful than a pinned topic.
- -

Plese note that social networks integration are made through additional plugins.

Key Features & Additional Tools

Key Features
Bundled Softwares
Softwares that are also available with the forum.
  • Portal
  • Wiki
  • Blog
  • Downloads Manager
Users List
List of all user accounts, to helps users searching their friends.
Yes Yes
Private Messages
Users can communicate using an internal messaging system.
Yes Yes Online Users List
List of actually connected users, in the forum home page, a dedicated topic,...
Yes Yes
Instant Messaging
Communicate in the forum like in other IM (Yahoo Messenger, Live Messenger, Google Talk,...)
Yes Yes RSS/Atom Syndication
New posts and threads available using aggregators Syndicate
RSS 2.0
Calendar Yes Yes Remote Control
Remote control from external softwares or websites.
No.
Poll Creation Yes Yes Friendly URLs
URLs are explicit and contains information about the topic (title, message,...). This is highly recommended for SEO purposes.
Yes Yes

Wiki, Blog, Portal and Downloads Manager are plugins that complete this already really powerful software with additional features.

The Blog plugin is for example really useful if some of your members want to host their own blog on your community forum.

 
 
Next page: