Beehive Forum Review

(July 17, 2006 13:38)
Last Version 0.9.1 (July 15, 2009). Released under GPL License.
Resources Website Beehive Forum Website Download Download...
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What is Beehive Forum?

Beehive Forum is a frame-based software, embedding a forum and a CMS. Forum are organized as thread, and the user participation is deeply thought in the product in order to let members contribute as much as possible.

Review Updates:

  • March 9th, 2010: Review update with Beehive Forum 0.9.1.

Beehive Forum is recommended for Small Community.

(and supports smaller communities perfectly as well.)

Server & Client Requirements

Server Requirements
Programming Language
Required Architecture and Versions.
  • PHP 4
  • PHP 5
Web Servers
How the forum is delivered to users.
  • Apache 1.3
  • Apache 2.0/2.2
  • Microsoft IIS
Databases
How Forum Data are Stored.
  • MySQL
Operating Systems
Systems Supporting this Software.
  • GNU/LinuxGNU/Linux
  • Microsoft WindowsMicrosoft Windows
Browser & Client Requirements
Compatible Browsers
List of Compatible Browsers.
Mozilla FirefoxMozilla FirefoxInternet ExplorerInternet Explorer
Google ChromeGoogle ChromeOperaOpera
Apple SafariApple SafariKonquerorKonqueror
Mozilla SeaMonkeyMozilla SeaMonkey
Required Plugins/Technologies
Additional or Basic Requirements from Client Side.
Javascript.
Localization
Languages supported by Beehive Forum.
Yes.
Supported Languages:
German French
English (British) English (American)

Beehive Forum only works on a MySQL database, and does not use the PHP independent database connectivity API. This is not a specific problem but more and more PHP softwares should really migrate to this system.

Compatibility with Smartphones
Compatible SmartPhones
Compatible Cellphone Brands and Manufacturers.
No.
Application Distribution / Type
How it is distributed / App Store Availability
No.

Forum Threads & Posts

Forum Threads / Topics
Forum Style Flat Forum Organization
  • Forum Categories
  • Sub Sections
Thread Icons No Topic Tags -
Hot Topics - Unread Topics Yes
Hidden Topics No Sticky Threads No
Related Threads - Detect Duplicate Threads No
Announcements -
Posting Messages / Answers
Message Editing Form
How to Post Messages.
  • Formatting Buttons
  • Preview Button
Post Editing Format
Supported Markup Language (HTML, Wiki, BBCode,...).
  • Plain
  • HTML
Spell Checker
Checks typos on posts and topics.
Yes
Image Attachment
How Images can be Attached and Displayed in Message Posts.
No.
Embedded Videos
Videos and Media Websites Supported in Message Posts.
No.
Posting Features
Quick Reply Box Yes Smileys Yes
Attachments Yes Syntax Highlighting No
Message Rating
Yes Message Quoting Yes

Additional & Technical Features

Additional Forum Features
Poll Creation Yes
Private Messages
Users Can Communicate using an Internal Messaging System.
Yes
Instant Messaging
Discuss with Visitors and Members in a Chat Window.
No
Calendar
Topic, Member Birthdays, Events are available from the perspective of a calendar.
No
Online Users List
Connected User List (Often Found in the Forum Footer).
Yes
Members List
Search and Consult the List of Members.
Yes
Technical Features
Bundled Software
Additional Software Available with the Forum.
  • Portal
  • Website Home Page
RSS/Atom Syndication
Posts and Threads Exported to Feeds Aggregators Syndicate.
No.
Friendly URLs
URLs are clear and contain information about the topic (title, message,...). Highly recommended for SEO purposes.
No
Post by Email
Post Directly From your Email Box.
-
Remote Control
Remote Control from External Software/Websites.
No.
Cache System
Cache pages to optimize bandwidth and load times.
No
Template Engine
It is easier to theme a forum using a known template engine (more docs & examples,...).
No.

Theming is possible using the theme generator provided by Administration page of Beehive Forum. This is in fact a simple CSS modification, which is really easy and fast to use.

User Profiles & Options

Some details about Beehive Forum features regarding members.
Member Options & Features
Bookmark Threads
User Profiles Keep a List of Followed Posts and Topics.
Yes
Email Notifications
Receive Emails When New Messages are Posted in Followed Threads.
Yes
Export private messages
Private Messages can be Downloaded by Users.
Yes
Payment Subscriptions
Paying Membership Subscription.
No
User Profiles
User Profile
User Information and Settings.
Yes
Avatars
Pictures of Members, Useful to Easily Identify their Posts.
No
Signature
Signatures Added at the Bottom of Each Message.
Yes
Ranks
Tags and Labels Identifying the Members, based on specific criteria (Total Posts Count, Credits, Moderation Level...)
No

Moderation & Users Management

Moderation & Threads Management
Moderation No.
Moderator per section No
Global Moderator No
Move Threads
Move Threads from Topics
Yes
Shadow Topics
When a thread is moved, the previous position is kept in order to inform users of this modification.
No
Close/Lock Threads
Close/Lock Problematic Threads
Yes
Users Management
User Groups
Organize and define groups of users, and apply different actions and settings on them.
Common Groups: Guests, Members, Moderators, Administrators,...
Yes
User Registration No.
Limit Features For New Users
Features are limited if a user has created a small number of posts.
-
Guest Posting Yes
Multiple Administrators Yes
Send Warnings to Users
Inform users by email or PM that they infringe the board rules, and could be excluded for such behavior.
No
Forum/Section Restricted Access
ACL could be use to determine if a user or a group of users can access (in read only, post message) to some sections and topics.
No
User Banishment Yes

Administration & Support

Database Management
Backup Database
Backup forum datas that you could store somewhere else.
No
Prune Database
Remove old and unused datas from your forum.
No
Restore Database
Restore a backup of your database if the previous install crashed.
No
Administration Tools
Statistics
Statistics about posts count, users, traffic...
No Error/Notice Log Viewer
Forum Logs could be consulted.
Yes
Tasks Scheduler
Maintenance tasks are regularly launched and could be scheduled.
No Mass Mailing
Send an email (newsletters, advertisements, information,...) to all users.
No
Installation & Upgrading
Installation Method
How this forum software could be installed.
Installation Wizard
Upgrading Method
How this forum software could be upgraded.
Manual Upgrading
Updates Notifications
The Admin Panel informs you when a new version is released.
No
Forum Migration
Convert an existing forum to Beehive Forum.
No.

Security & Spam Protection

Security & Spam Protection
CAPTCHA
Captcha protects your forum against spam bots.
e.g., Syndicate
Yes
Abnormal Behavior Detection
Detect users or request strange behaviors, and try to process proactive actions.
-
Words Filtering
Offensing Words are automatically replaced.
Yes
User Blacklist
Prevent specific user accounts to register (based on email address, name,...) and disable potentially harmful members.
No
IP Blocking
Prevent access to spam robots and other scripts that could attempt DDOS or Brute Force attacks on your forum.
No

Vulnerabilities Advisories Criticality

Secunia Criticality

Secunia Advisories severity affecting Beehive Forum.

Vulnerabilities Impact

Secunia Impact

Secunia Advisories impact affecting Beehive Forum.

Customization & Social Networks

Customization
Plugins
Add new features to your forum installation.
No.
Themes
Modify the style of your forum easily.
Yes.
Custom BBCodes No Smiley Packs -
Custom
Thread Icons
Patch Additional User Profile Fields
Ask more about your members with custom fields.
No
Integration with Applications, Social Networks, Intranet...
Social Networks
Users can share information from their social network account...
No.
CMS / Blog Bridges
Integration with existing Web publishing tools.
No.
User Accounts Integration
Do users be able to log in with their corporate, Google, Facebook,... accounts?
No.
Content Aggregation
Forum allows to integrate news and content from other website, using an aggregation protocol (RSS, RDF, Atom,...).
No.

W3C Norms & Accessibility

Norms & Accessibility
HTML / XHTML Markup
Frameset HTML.
Frameset HTML
Click to see if it respects HTML norms.
CSS Stylesheets
CSS 2.
CSS 2
Click to see if it respects CSS norms.
Accessibility (WAI)
Web Accessibility ensures that the forum is usable by people of all abilities and disabilities.
Conformance to A level.
A
UTF-8 Support
Default encoding used to support all locales and countries.
Yes
Conformance to W3C Norms
Does Beehive Forum correctly follow (X)HTML and CSS norms?
No.

Frames are really outdated in our Web 2.0 century, and however, Beehive Forum uses them.

More over, Beehive Forum uses its own DTD file, which complies with W3c norms, but very strange for interoperability.

Final Words


Fair.

This forum software can easily replace all your web site parts, and can be compared as a (better, of course) PHPNuke solution, without the possibility to display or not some features.

Its administration is really complete, but will need to be used regularly before be a real Beehive Forum administrator.

The bad score about installation is explained by the fact that SQL prefixing is buggy, and this problem can be really dangerous for people who install on the same database the forum software and an other system. We however hope this problem will be fixed soon.

One of the good idea of this forum is the automatic threads creation, which allows a community to chat about news from other websites.

Finally, by default, Beehive Forum do not display on the index page of the forum by default, that will definitely prove that Beehive Forum can be used by people who need a all-in-one solution, but not those who look for a simple forum software.

Additional Resources:

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Comments (17)

Several things.

Yo Pedro,

This review made interesting reading, but I feel that I have to highlight several errors and mistakes.

Let's start with simple ones:

Beehive does have themes.
Beehive does have Captcha protection.
Beehive does allow file attachments.

On top of these, you criticise it for using frames. That's a bit like criticising water for being watery. Beehive is designed to be a frame-based platform, and that is how it's always been. I believe there are plans to convert it to Web 2.0, but this is more to allow increased flexibility than simply to keep up to date with trends.

As a long-term user of Beehive, I can say that I've always found its installation to be particularly easy. Just a case of uploading a few files, filling in a few variables and then clicking 'install'. It's only difficult if you don't know or understand your database username and password, but that's not the fault of Beehive. Also as a user, I find Beehive to be easy to use. Whilst some of the advanced features are tucked away, they have to be like that in order to give priority to the more basic features. That's good software design, if you ask me.

And you also criticise Beehive for being too complete. How can something be too complete? It's full of features and useful things, yes. But does it have too many? I think not. Is it resource hungry? I think not.

In conclusion, I feel that your review was inaccurate and as a result was needlessly critical of Beehive as a forum. I would urge you to consider re-reviewing Beehive at some point, because I don't believe that you've done it justice.

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lastnico's picture

Incomplete review

The goal of forum-software.org is too be as precise as possible, and is a really new website. We need more time to test forum software, and i'm happy to see that someone points us our mistakes.

I've just made some updates to match the mistakes of the review

FSR Admin - Vote for 2012.

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Your review is inaccurate

Beehive does support themes, using CSS stylesheets and custom image sets. Also, users can individually choose from several different smiley styles.

Beehive does provide RSS syndication.

The Post form does (optionally) provide a WYSIWYG editor, using TinyMCE.

I believe User management is possible at the individual user level.

The registration page does have "captcha protection".

File attachments with posts have been possible since v0.2

The forum software is fully localizable using language files.

And yes, it uses frames, but it uses them well; they're kind of the whole point, in fact.

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Your review is inaccurate

I have been a regular user of Beehive Forums for quite some time and would like to point out several glaring errors in your review.

Firstly, Beehive definately does support themes, These can be changed right down to a per-user basis and are set using CSS stylesheets and images. There is also a "theme generator" built in to help admins create new themes.

Beehive certainly does provide support for RSS feeds.

Support for Text Captcha is build into Beehive.

File attachments has been built into Beehive for an awful long time and the attachment functionality does support the creation of thumbnail images for image attachments. To claim that such features as this don't exist indicate a glaring lack of integrity in your review as you somehow managed to click "Post" and ignore the very clear "Attachments" button on the post window.

The forum software is fully localisable using a variety of language files, plenty of which have been provided by users of Beehive and which can be selected on a per-user basis.

Regarding frames, I think it's wrong to criticise Beehive for this based on your own personal feelings. A wide range of people find a frame based layout with both threads, folders and thread content accessible at all times to be a very beneficial feature of the user interface.

Beehive was indeed built to imitate the popular layout of Delphi Forums rather than the "flat" layout of forum software such as phpBB. I've personally used several forums based on vBulletin and phpBB and I dislike the sheer amount of backwards and forwards clicking that is required to get from the folder view, to the list of threads, to the actual thread content. They are a nightmare to navigate around unlike frame based forum software. Beehive allows all of these to be viewed at the same time and so this interface provides numerous benefits to those who use it.

Ultimately, I find your review incomplete, clearly incorrect and far too biased by personal feelings rather than an objective pointing out of the actual benefits and drawbacks in terms of real world usage.

Incidentally, I'm not a developer of Beehive or anything like that, just a user of it.

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Your Beehive forum isn't

Your Beehive forum isn't installed correctly. If you need help, you should contact Teh Forum; http://www.tehforum.co.uk/forum/. It's the Beehive developers' main support forum. There are a lot of friendly people there who have proven they're more than happy to help those who need it.

The Cybatrons Free Network has 3 sites using Beehive 0.9.1, customized to suit their needs. Beehive forums software has proven itself for them for years; stability under heavy activity, flexibility, easily customizable, excellent support community.

This should help those interested in learning more about Beehive's features...This isn't all as of 0.9.1, but it gives you a good start. The recently released 1.0.1 has even more to offer.

Active and reliable support community and developers; http://www.tehforum.co.uk/forum/.

Easy to understand Auto-installer included.
Ability to host one forum or many.
Single forums system with a single userbase, and per-forum options.
118n multiple language support.
Reply-to-user, Reply to Thread, Quick Reply, and Reply To All message board options.
Mark topics as Normal, High Interest, Ignore, or Subscribe.
Review thread option allows you to view the entire thread while you're posting your message.
Members can subscribe to individual threads and/or individual folders.
Ignore signatures, entire folders and/or topics, or users.
E-mail notification of post replies and Private Messages to you.
Member-to-member email via message board or profile.
Complete PM (Private Message) system with export utility, and automatic pruning feature to clean out old messages.
Member privacy controls: browse forum anonymously, disallow PMs, email notices of messages, member-to-member email from boards or profile, allow only friends to see you logged in, ignore specific users.
1MB personal attachment space. (default)
Full attachment controls for uploading, using, or deleting your attachments.
Forums system owners can raise attachment limit or disallow attachments system wide.
Flexible searching system, accessibility support, and easy-to-use frame-based layout.
Multiple style options, including dyslexia support.
Choose from multiple smiley packages.
Theme drop down in My Controls; allows for complete personal view settings per member for each forum.
Plain text, basic HTML, or WYSIWYG editor posting options.
Post Tools; post preview, use of personal signatures, emoticons, and more.
Advanced word-filtering: both forum based and individual member;
--with Perl-compatible Regular Expression parsing, enable Wiki integration. Don't see words you don't want to see.
Polls with anonymous voting, public ballots, and various layouts and options.
Forum stats displayed at bottom of message board; active users, most active thread, posts made in the hour, and more.
Lite Version forum viewing option for use with PDAs and some mobile phones.
Forum links section allows members to share links with others, and forum owners better organization and easier moderation of the links without sacrificing a message board folder.
My Forums page with personal view settings; Favorites, Recently Visited, Available Forums, and Ignored Forums.
Personal avatars; 15px wide by 15px high image support (jpg, jpeg, gif, png).
User profiles with a 90px wide by 90px high image support (jpg, gif, jpeg, png), homepage link, number of posts by user, longest session and total time in forum, and more.
Control who sees profile information with friends, enemies, and privacy options.
Message board signatures; signature editing with plain text, basic HTML, or WYSIWYG editor.
Members can opt-in to a 'Forthcoming Birthdays' list.
Flexible relationships system: Ignore user, users posts or signatures completely, define friends and easily find their messages, or enemies and ignore theirs.
A Forum Owner: Can set a content rating for your forum's content; General, 14 Years, Mature, Restricted.
A Forum Owner: Full, easy to use forum admin tools
A Forum Owner: List possible aliases for each user.
A Forum Owner: Wormed, Pilloried, and Kick user controls.
A Forum Owner: Ban With IP, Nickname, Username, Email, or HTTP Referrer.
A Forum Owner: Delete all posts by a user in thread or throughout forum.
A Forum Owner: Create sticky threads, split and merge threads, close threads, lock folders and titles.
A Forum Owner: Set a time limit for posts to be edited without the 'Edited by' text showing up.
A Forum Owner: Move deleted threads out of sight (Trash Folder), or delete them permanently.
A Forum Owner: Create unique profile fields for your forum.
A Forum Owner: Create, edit, and/or delete forum folders.
A Forum Owner: Set individual permissions for each folder; normal threads, no-polls, polls only, and more.
A Forum Owner: Style-creator, allowing you to create basic color styles for your forum.
A Forum Owner: Forum links drop down: allows forum owners to link their forum to other forums or websites.
A Forum Owner: Edit forum's start page with a plain text, basic HTML, or WYSIWYG editor, preview it, or upload a start page.
A Forum Owner: Full user permissions controls for managing users. Both individual and group.
A Forum Owner: Full user group creation, editing, and deletion controls.
A Forum Owner: Admin logs of all forum admin activities.
A Forum Owner: In depth forum stats for forum owner; Most posts in a set period of time and more.
A Forum Owner: Allow or deny guest access to forum.
A Forum Owner: Show or don't show guests on forum visitor log.
A Forum Owner: Make forum Public, Restricted (private), or Password Protected (private). Your choice!
A Forum Owner: Set 'Forum Rules' a person must agree to before being able to register with your forum.
A Forum Owner: Private (Restricted) forum owners can create a message to display to nonmember visitors, which is shown to them when they try to enter your forum. They don't gain access to your forum without your permission.
A Forum Owner: Set up a Forum Closed page to inform visitors of the forum's closed status.
A Forum Owner: Allow/Disallow stats - display active users, total posts, etc at bottom of message board.
A Forum Owner: Choose if you want to display Google Adds to Guests, Everyone, or no one in your forum.
A Forum Owner: Set up a forum Word Filter.
A Forum Owner: Set up RSS Feeds, and Wiki integration.
and much more!

Beehive 1.0.1 has been released and has a number of new and interesting features. You should check it out carefully before placing a review for it.

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lastnico's picture

Thanks for this really

Thanks for this really complete description of Beehive Forum 1.0.1, I'll plan a new review of it in the coming months.

FSR Admin - Vote for 2012.

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cybatrons's picture

This list is for 0.9.1. The

This list is for 0.9.1. The sites using Beehive haven't upgraded to 1.0.1 as of yet.

I believe they've only recently started working on customizing the new 1.0.1 version for upgrade at a later date. When they do upgrade, we'll let you know how things go for them, and possibly see that you have an updated feature list.

If you'd like information on them as well, we also have member sites providing hosting using PHPBB.

Just send us an email, or visit the Cybatrons Free Network directory, http://directory.cybatrons.com/ or .org. They're listed under CFN Member sites.

If you like, you can submit your own site for inclusion in one of the available categories.

Now, I simply must seek my bed, blankets, and pillow. While I can still see to walk.
Have a good one!

Cybatrons Free Network: Where Free isn't a dirty word!
CFN member sites offer free membership, add-free, free hosting for Beehive and PHPBB forums with chat and much more!

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lastnico's picture

Ok, then I'm waiting for your

Ok, then I'm waiting for your next mail once this 1.0.1 version will be published to refresh our feature list.

BTW, do you know why http://beehiveforum.net is not available anymore (DNS problem)?

Have a good night!

FSR Admin - Vote for 2012.

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We have lost control of the

We have lost control of the beehiveforum.net domain to some cyber-squatters. I'm hoping to get the domain back from them, but for the time being our new domain name is beehiveforum.co.uk. Can you please update the link in your review to point to this domain instead.

Thanks.

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lastnico's picture

Hi, Thanks for the

Hi,

Thanks for the information, website URL is updated.

FSR Admin - Vote for 2012.

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Super post it is definitely.

Super post it is definitely. My father has been awaiting for this information.

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na i dont think am a fan of

na i dont think am a fan of this more like to be with mybb instead give it a try
http://yah-underworld.com & http://host-fire.com check these out for a review you may get some examples how you might want your site to look when changing boards but am telling ya mate go for mybb , vbulletin is hackable has many bugs too.

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A content management system

A content management system (CMS) is a computer system that allows publishing, editing, and modifying content as well as site maintenance from a central page. It provides a collection of procedures used to manage workflow in a collaborative environment. These procedures can be manual or computer-based. Chicago Moving Company

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Now it goes to which is the

Now it goes to which is the best forum. People would say go vBulletin all of my forums are that and it never let me down. I never came to the conclusion of who is best whether they were paid or not.I would say there is a bigger hype around paid boards and a huge hype on vBulletin on the whole.

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just use beehive forum

just use beehive forum software for a while, you'll soon start to wonder how you have put up with all the other forum software out there, try mybb , vbulletin, hpbb, etc (whatever) if you want, but once you've tried beehive you won't want to go back to those inferior styles

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Hello, There still seems to

Hello,

There still seems to be a few innacuracies in your review that need correcting.

* Sticky threads exist in Beehive and have for many years.
* Hidden topics are also possible (by creating a hidden folder - for example, for moderator use only).
* Syntax highlighting does exist (wrap the code in the appropriate tags - or use the button on the toolbar to generate these, state the language, and all the necessary keywords etc. are highlighted. Just tested it here with some C++ code and it works fine.)
* Avatars are a grey area. Beehive does support completely customisable icons which are visible next to your username. They're smaller than traditional avatars, but as Beehive places the poster's name above the post, they can't really be any bigger without disrupting the flow of the forum.
* Beehive has a very complete permissions system and per-section moderation is certainly possible - as is global moderation with less rights than administrators.
* I don't quite understand the "Send Warnings to Users" section as users on Beehive can be warned by PM or e-mail by a moderator for inappropriate behaviour. You rightly point out that Beehive has the ability to send PMs etc, so I'm a bit confused why you don't seem to think that moderators can use these tools for warning users.

I'm not sure about some of the Administration details, and it's worth pointing out that there's a load of forum statistics available at the bottom of the screen for all users to view. However, I did want to point out a couple of the mistakes. By and large though, the review is pretty accurate apart from these details.

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Beehive has a very complete

Beehive has a very complete permissions system and per-section moderation is certainly possible - as is global moderation with less rights than administrators.

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