Software Alternatives, Accelerators & Startups

MyBB VS PunBB

Compare MyBB VS PunBB and see what are their differences

MyBB logo MyBB

MyBB is a discussion board software that runs on PHP and MySQL

PunBB logo PunBB

PunBB is a fast and lightweight PHP-powered discussion board.
  • MyBB Landing page
    Landing page //
    2023-07-10
  • PunBB Landing page
    Landing page //
    2023-04-24

MyBB features and specs

  • Free and Open-Source
    MyBB is free to download and use. Its open-source nature allows for complete customization and transparency.
  • User-Friendly Interface
    The software offers a clean and intuitive interface, making it easy for both administrators and users to navigate.
  • Community Support
    A large, active community provides extensive documentation, plugins, themes, and support.
  • Extensible
    MyBB supports a wide range of plugins and themes, allowing users to extend its functionality and appearance easily.
  • Built-In Features
    It offers a variety of built-in features like private messaging, multi-quote, user tagging, and more.
  • SEO Friendly
    MyBB includes SEO-friendly URLs and settings that help improve the forum's visibility on search engines.
  • Security
    Regular security updates and a dedicated security team help ensure that the platform is secure.

Possible disadvantages of MyBB

  • Outdated Design
    Some users may find the default themes and design elements outdated compared to modern forum software.
  • Limited Built-In Modern Features
    While MyBB has a lot of basic features, it lacks some modern functionalities out of the box, requiring additional plugins.
  • Learning Curve for Customization
    While it is highly customizable, new users may find it challenging to modify the software to fit their needs without digging into the documentation or community forums.
  • Performance
    The performance may degrade with a large number of users and posts, requiring additional optimizations or server resources.
  • Plugin Dependence
    To add advanced features, users often need to rely on third-party plugins, which may not always be up to date or secure.
  • Less Frequent Updates
    Compared to some other forum software, updates and new releases are less frequent, which can lead to delays in receiving new features or bug fixes.

PunBB features and specs

  • Lightweight
    PunBB is designed to be a lightweight forum software, which means it runs efficiently and uses minimal server resources, allowing for faster page loads and reduced server load.
  • Simplicity
    PunBB offers a simplistic design and user interface, making it easy to navigate and operate for both administrators and users. This simplicity can be appealing for forums that do not require complex features.
  • Easy to Install and Use
    The setup process for PunBB is straightforward, and its intuitive interface makes it easy for new administrators to configure and manage their forums.
  • Basic Features
    PunBB provides all the essential features needed for running a forum, without any unnecessary bloat. This includes user registration, posting, private messaging, and moderation tools.
  • Open Source
    As an open-source project, PunBB can be modified and customized to suit specific needs, providing flexibility to developers who want to tailor their forum setup.

Possible disadvantages of PunBB

  • Limited Built-in Features
    Compared to other forum software, PunBB lacks some advanced features out of the box, such as built-in image galleries, advanced search, or extensive user management features.
  • Minimal Support for Extensions
    While extensions can be added to enhance functionality, the ecosystem for plugins and extensions is not as robust as some other forum solutions, which can limit feature expansion.
  • Outdated Design
    The default design of PunBB may appear outdated to modern users, requiring additional effort to update the visual style to align with current design trends.
  • Smaller Community
    PunBB has a smaller community compared to some other popular forum software, which can result in fewer community-contributed add-ons, themes, or user support.
  • Less Frequent Updates
    The development and release cycle for PunBB updates may be slower than more actively maintained projects, potentially leading to delays in receiving new features or security updates.

MyBB videos

How to Build a Forum Website Free! MYBB review: Demo + Quick Setup Tutorial

More videos:

  • Review - Host your Own Forums with MyBB
  • Tutorial - How To Create / Set Up Your Own MyBB Forum 2019

PunBB videos

green style punbb $12

Category Popularity

0-100% (relative to MyBB and PunBB)
Forums And Forum Software
Forums
72 72%
28% 28
Community Platform
70 70%
30% 30
Social & Communications
39 39%
61% 61

User comments

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Reviews

These are some of the external sources and on-site user reviews we've used to compare MyBB and PunBB

MyBB Reviews

Top 10 Best Free Open Source Forum Software to Setup own Discussion Forum
MyBB is a free application for discussion forums which is scripted in PHP language and uses MySQL database. The application includes almost everything which is required to run an effective and fascinating community smoothly. It uses an instructive discussion board set up so which allows viewers to begin and respond to interactions and tag their posts. In order to keep the...
Source: technofizi.net

PunBB Reviews

We have no reviews of PunBB yet.
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Social recommendations and mentions

Based on our record, MyBB seems to be more popular. It has been mentiond 8 times since March 2021. We are tracking product recommendations and mentions on various public social media platforms and blogs. They can help you identify which product is more popular and what people think of it.

MyBB mentions (8)

  • Best way to host a small forum?
    Excellent! Glad we could get you sorted! Hosting can be scary and it's okay to be afraid to touch things or not understand certain settings or terms. Especially if you're new. The key is to read the documentation. For your forum needs, this can be found at https://mybb.com and https://phpbb.com. Source: over 1 year ago
  • PhpBB
    I actually recommend myBB [0] over phpBB for anyone looking to set up a LAMP forum. It's cleaner, better written, and possibly better maintained and with a much less scary vulnerability history. I believe it started off as an attempt to create an OSS version of IPB (or was it vB?). [0]: https://github.com/mybb/mybb. - Source: Hacker News / almost 2 years ago
  • How can I create a forum using HTML, CSS, and JavaScript?
    As u/Marble_Wraith mentioned. You will find more help and information at r/webdev. That being said, building a Forum is somewhat complex, if you're planning to do so from scratch without any prior knowledge this could be a challenging first task. If it's also an option to use a pre-build app, then https://mybb.com/ is a good starting point. You can also find some information on YouTube about how to get it running. Source: almost 3 years ago
  • What happened to the new offsite backup project?
    If you want something done and nobody is doing it, it is best to do it yourself. Source: almost 3 years ago
  • Got Me Kicked Off Nanny Job Fb group!!
    She probably intimidated the group moderator, I can't see how any of that would have gotten you kicked out of a group. I suppose you could start your own group or even start one of those free forums like https://mybb.com/ and you decide how members will be vetted and of course everyone use a pseudonym. She probably has an alternate account that isn't her real name., hence why you can't block her. I suppose you... Source: about 3 years ago
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PunBB mentions (0)

We have not tracked any mentions of PunBB yet. Tracking of PunBB recommendations started around Mar 2021.

What are some alternatives?

When comparing MyBB and PunBB, you can also consider the following products

Discourse - Discourse is an open source discussion platform built for the next decade of the Internet.

Vanilla Forums - Build an engaging community forum using Vanilla's modern cloud forum software.

phpBB - Raspberry Pi. The Raspberry Pi is a cheap, credit-card sized computer. The official website uses phpBB for their discussion forums. phpBB is not affiliated with nor responsible for any of the sites listed on the showcase.

Forumbee - Forumbee offers community forums for discussions, feedback and Q&A.

XenForo - Intuitive. Social. Engaging. Fast. XenForo brings a fresh outlook to forum software.

Flarum - Flarum is the next-generation forum software that makes online discussion fun. It's simple, fast, and free.