The Great Board Debate - SMF Vs PhpBB

Across the universe that is the internet, we have begun to come into the age of the forums. Big Boards, a web site that lists individual community forums that have over 50,000 posts or a similarly large number of members, has grown tremendously over the last few months, more specifically because of the number of large database communities that are popping up on almost every imaginable subject across the web. Almost all of these forums are functioned on a php-based software system that uses mySQL, a database, to track members, posts, topics, etc. While there are a vast number of forum systems (also known as bulletin board software) that are available to the public - some free and some not so free - by far the most popular are SMF and phpBB.

SMF, more formally known as Simple Machines Forum; and phpBB have both truly led the field, as it were, in forum systems all across the internet. There are, essentially, three factors that most people evaluate when they are choosing from a free bulletin board system. Security, Reliability, and Features are the focus that almost every administrator of bulletin boards seems to have when they are choosing between the two options. As much as the two are both free for public use, there seems to be a dead heat between the two when looking at what should be used for a public board.

When looking at Security, it is a bit hard to have a solid understanding of which board system has the upper hand. At minimum for several months, Simple machine forums has been the clear upper hand if for no other reason than the phpBB administrative functions would not solidly handle the "administrator approved" registration function. To explain this just a bit, each board gives a variable amount of options to an administrator on how registration to their new forum will be handled. Most commonly, an administrator will choose to either have an open registration, where anybody that so desires can register and post to the boards immediately; user-approved registration, where anybody can register but they must click on an automatically emailed link to be able to post; and administrative registration, where anybody can register but they must be approved by an administrator before they can post. Each board has different desires where registration methods is concerned, but for those who desired the more closed concept of registration with administrative registration more often than not prefer to go to SMF. Again simply because phpBB's Administrative registration simply does not often work. Individuals will register and an administrator will be informed, but the individual can post right away, before approval is given. The other aspect of Security to consider, quite obviously, is how the forum is able to handle spammers. Spam within forums has become an increasing problem and though there is enough information there for another 20 articles, I digress. The simple fact of the matter is that, with the intelligence of spammers growing on an almost daily basis, both SMF and phpBB are having some serious problems keeping up with the constant attacks. Administrators do have a growing number of options for security modifications, but the spammers seem to stay just one step ahead.

The next factor to choosing your favored board is simply reliability. How often does the board go down for inability to connect with the database? How often do little "glitches" occur that make posts, topics, or even members suddenly disappear from the database? How much pressure does the software itself put on your server's bandwidth and storage? These are all typical questions a new administrator needs to ask when deciding between the two software functions. Fortunately, both software developers have made massive improvements since their rather humble origins. The workloads to servers, database glitches and database connection problems have almost become a thing of the past. As such both SMF and phpBB are fairly neck and neck in the department of reliability.

Finally we come to the factor that most administrators focus on as they are deciding which software to use - features. When you are looking at message board software these features come in two forms, specifically those features that are built in with the distribution of the software and those that are available in what are commonly known as "mods" or modifications. Reviewing the available standard features to compare the two developments the stand-out winner would be Simple machine forums. Though phpBB is in development stages of upgrades that will bring them much farther in the race for standard installed features, at this point phpBB does not bring to the table such features as sub-boards - folders within folders - or even extended administrative management functions. Simple machine forum not only provides automatic capabilities for unlimited sub-boards but also provides a comprehensive list of options, not the least of which is a standard installed quick-reply function.

The other, and some say more important aspect of features within a bulletin board system, is the modifications available. In this particular race, at least overall, there is, in some ways, a tie between the two developments. If you are looking for nothing more than the number of available modifications, then phpBB is hands-down the system to use. They have thousands upon thousands of modifications available on everything from the administrative control panel to themes to a variety of "fun" things that users of a board can do. Simple machine forums do have a good number of quality modifications that would fulfill the basic needs of almost any forum, but in sheer number of possibilities phpBB is the clear winner. However, one problem that the modifications have with phpBB is that almost consistently they must be installed manually, on a nearly line by line basis. Though you can have a minimal amount of php coding knowledge and still manually install modifications the simple matter of the issue is that it is time consuming, often tremendously time consuming, to manually install modifications. Simple machine forums has what they call a "package" procedure where you only need to download the modification and go into the administrative panel and follow the instructions - simple machine forums will then upload and install the modification automatically.

In summary, when you are trying to decide between phpBB and Simple machine forums it is best to think first on exactly what you need with your desired board. Examine what your hosting company provides, as often hosts will have a one-click install option available for either or both. It can be whether you need more security or less; more features or less; or even just simply the simplicity of installation that can make the final determination on which development to use. However, all in all, the software that seems to cover the most requirements for community boards is Simple Machine Forums.