2021 phpBB Review – Pros & Cons

Serving as one of the most popular open source forum software, phpBB is pervasively known to the public. Since not everyone is capable of understanding this software deeply, we work out the following in-depth analysis after we have been its users for more than 3 months. In below, we put lots of emphasis on its advantages and disadvantages. Meanwhile, if you have no idea of how to set up a forum using this software, please refer to this post.

On June 17th 2000, at first, phpBB was employed by James Atkinson as one UBB-like forum serving for its own website. Later, a fully functional version of this software was made available in July. With progress made, on December 16th, 2000, phpBB 1.0.0 was officially launched. After subsequent improvements fulfilled, phpBB 1.4.4 was released on November 6th, 2001. Finally, 8 months ago, its latest version phpBB 3.0.12 was launched on September 28th, 2013. In below, we come out its overall ratings in details for your reference.

Advantages of phpBB

Being written in PHP scripting language, phpBB refers to PHP Bulletin Board. As an open source and free forum software available under the GNU General Public License, this software has already been utilized by a number of large forums including Gaia Online, Jogos, JLA Forums and Rus-Chat on account of the following advantages.

Zero Cost

Being open source, the using of this software is free of charge. Moreover, there are a great many free plugins, themes and MODs available at its official website.

Well-Suited Forum Structure

This software features a flat structure for message instead of threaded one, which brings a good deal of conveniences for not only the owner of forums but also their followers.

Great Extendability

phpBB gains tremendous favor because of its MOD system allowing masters of forums to boost the extendability via downloading all indispensable modifications to power the administration of a forum. These easy to download and install MODs feature a vast range of categories involving almost all sides for the organization of forums.

Clear Hierarchy

Using this software, it is possible to build hierarchical subforums as well as user groups aiming at creating great structure for posts and threads.

High Level of Customization

As for customizability, phpBB comes with a good many chances by making it possible for the customization of forum, which enables you to accommodate all the process of administration according to what makes sense to you. Also, you are allowed to customize the templates and styles.

Disadvantages of phpBB

Everything has both positive and negative sides, which is also true of phpBB. In the following lists in details, we cover main disadvantages of this forum software.

Not SEO-Friendly

Universally, search engine optimization plays a key part in running forum. If creating forums applying phpBB, it is a little bit tough to achieve top ranking in the search results because this software does not feature SEO-friendly URLs. By default, the URLs in phpBB are not human friendly which means that you have to manually solve problem.

Being Confined to Forum

Specifically, this application is crafted for running forum serving as the only option. Therefore, it is impossible to run a blog or any other sorts of websites with phpBB. To be honest, in this aspect, this application is really not of rich diversity.

Sophisticated Administration

Frankly speaking, the procedures of management are a little bit sophisticated and there is no automatic mod installer available because of which masters of forums are required to get hold of skills and knowledge of programming.

Lacking the Support for RSS

Without the support of RRS (Rich Site Summary), you are incapable of publishing frequently updated information that includes news headlines, blog entries, video and audio playing a pivotal role in driving traffic to forums.

Summary > phpBB Is Recommended

It can be clearly found from the above analysis that the merits of phpBB surpass its demerits. Nothing is perfect, hence, it is still recommendable for webmasters who want to run forums. If this software is satisfactory, please refer to best phpBB hosting for a right choice.