Software Alternatives, Accelerators & Startups

NodeBB VS MyBB

Compare NodeBB VS MyBB and see what are their differences

NodeBB logo NodeBB

NodeBB Forum Software - A better community platform for the modern web. NodeBB is a next generation forum software that's free and easy to use.

MyBB logo MyBB

MyBB is a discussion board software that runs on PHP and MySQL
  • NodeBB Landing page
    Landing page //
    2022-12-23
  • MyBB Landing page
    Landing page //
    2023-07-10

NodeBB features and specs

  • Real-time Interaction
    NodeBB is built using Node.js and WebSockets, which allows for real-time interactions and live updates without the need for page refreshes.
  • Ease of Customization
    It offers a highly customizable setup with numerous plugins and themes available, enabling users to tailor their forums to specific needs.
  • Modern User Interface
    NodeBB features a sleek, modern, and responsive user interface that is mobile-friendly.
  • SEO Friendly
    NodeBB is designed with SEO best practices in mind, making it easier for forums to be crawled and indexed by search engines.
  • Scalability
    Due to its non-blocking nature and efficient handling of numerous connections, NodeBB scales well for large communities.
  • Active Development
    NodeBB is regularly updated and maintained by an active community and a dedicated development team.
  • Social Media Integration
    The platform includes excellent integration capabilities with social media platforms, allowing users to log in via various social accounts.

Possible disadvantages of NodeBB

  • Limited Ecosystem
    While NodeBB has a growing repository of plugins and themes, its ecosystem is not as extensive as some older platforms.
  • Complex Setup
    Setting up NodeBB can be complicated for users who are not familiar with Node.js and its ecosystem. It often requires a deeper understanding of server management.
  • Resource Intensive
    NodeBB can be resource-intensive, especially when dealing with large communities, which may require more powerful servers or more optimized configurations.
  • Dependency Management
    NodeBB's reliance on Node.js and npm means that you need to keep track of dependencies, which can sometimes lead to compatibility issues or security vulnerabilities.
  • Learning Curve
    For users not familiar with modern JavaScript frameworks and Node.js, there is a significant learning curve involved in managing and customizing NodeBB.
  • Cost of Plugins
    Some of the more advanced or premium plugins may have associated costs, which can add up depending on the features you need.

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.

NodeBB videos

NodeBB reputation basics

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

Category Popularity

0-100% (relative to NodeBB and MyBB)
Forums And Forum Software
Forums
50 50%
50% 50
Community Platform
49 49%
51% 51
Social & Communications
53 53%
47% 47

User comments

Share your experience with using NodeBB and MyBB. For example, how are they different and which one is better?
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Reviews

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

NodeBB Reviews

  1. Gloryfrancis
    SPACEBAR COUNTER

    NodeBB is a next-generation discussion platform that utilizes web sockets for instant interactions and real-time notifications. NodeBB forums have many modern features out of the box such as social network integration and streaming discussions. NodeBB is an open source project which can be forked on GitHub.

  2. Scott Alan Miller
    · COO at NTG LLC ·
    Best Forum Experience

    I was lucky enough to stumble on NodeBB in the early days right as we were transitioning a large user base from another forum and needed a platform that could handle the volume and speed of interactions that our users demanded. We took a big risk on NodeBB in 2014 when it was brand new and it has paid off in spades over the years. For seven years our users have consistently raved about ease of use and performance of the platform while on the back end we have been thrilled with the ease of management and low resource needs of hosting even for a site hitting hundreds of millions of hits per month. It is modern, regularly updated, has a great community and team behind it. We've always gotten lots of support and know that we made the right choice and continue to choose NodeBB as our forum of choice.

    🏁 Competitors: Discourse
    👍 Pros:    Ease of use|High performance|Great customer support|Open-source|Free|Scalable|Seo friendly

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

Social recommendations and mentions

Based on our record, MyBB should be more popular than NodeBB. 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.

NodeBB mentions (3)

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: over 2 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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What are some alternatives?

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

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

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

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.

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

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

Vanilla - Vanilla is a free Mac app that lets you hide icons from your menu bar.