Free PHP Message Boards (BBS) Scripts
Discussion boards, forums, bulletin boards PHP Scripts
Free Bulletin Board / Forum / Message Board / BBS PHP Scripts
Discussion boards, aka forums or BBS or Bulletin Boards or Message Boards or Community Forums (etc), have always been popular. They are also a good way of getting return visitors to your site, since people tend to return to check for responses to their messages.
The BBSes listed on this page are the PHP versions. If you want Perl versions, please see the Free Message Boards (Forums, BBS, Bulletin Boards, Discussion Boards) Perl CGI Scripts page instead. Some of the forums require your host to have SQL support (most often MySQL), while others can work without such database support.
You should also be aware that installing a Bulletin Board is not quite the same as installing a feedback form or a counter script. Forums / BBSes tend to take more work to set up correctly. Moreover, discussion forums consume huge amounts of resources, both in terms of processor time as well as disk space. You should also remember to back up your message base daily (if not more often) in order to minimize your losses should the server's hard disk crash or the like.
If you do not have the resources to spare, you might want to consider one of the free CGI hosting services for forums such as those listed on the Free Message Boards (Forums / BBS) Hosting page.
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Disclaimer
The information provided on this page comes without any warranty whatsoever. Use it at your own risk. Just because a program, book, document or service is listed here or has a good review does not mean that I endorse or approve of the program or of any of its contents. All the other standard disclaimers also apply.
Free PHP Forum, BBS, Message Boards, Discussion Boards Scripts
- Simple Machines Forum
Simple Machines Forum, or SMF, is a PHP forum software that uses a MySQL database. Its visual layout is controlled by templates, so you can customize its appearance by changing the template. It features the ability to group sub-forums, or boards, into categories; assign moderators to each board; create member groups and assign users to one or more of such groups; assigning certain member groups to certain boards/forums; controlling the permissions for each member group; board statistics that let you track topics, messages, new members, individual member statistics; banning members based on usernames, email address, IP address or hostname; support for polls, calendars, attachments; etc.
- MercuryBoard
MercuryBoard is a bulletin board script written in PHP 4. It uses a MySQL database and supports emoticons, search engine, help engine, an admin control panel, etc.
- phpBB Forum
This PHP based forum or BBS requires you to have MySQL, MS-SQL, PostgreSQL, or an Access/ODBC database server. It purports to be customizable, has a search utility (allowing your BBS visitors to be able to search the forum), private messaging system, unlimited forums and posts, multiple forum moderators, IP tracking on posts, an installation script, the ability to turn on/off HTML in posts, and so on.
- Zorum Community Forum Software
This is another PHP based community forum (message board) software. It requires a MySQL database, the Apache web server, and PHP version 4. According to its website, your server must also be running on Linux. The software supports both threaded and linear views. Other features include different permission levels, user profiles, moderated forums, personalisation, etc. It may be used free of charge for non-commercial purposes, but you have to register, and you may not put advertisements, banners, affiliate links or "any kind of commercial activity" on the forum pages of the site.
- tForum Bulletin Board System
tForum is a PHP bulletin board system that uses a MySQL database for storing the messages. It supports unlimited categories and boards, unlimited moderators, unlimited administrators, emoticons, IP banning, IP logging and display, email duplicate check, email notifications, close topic, word filtering, message preview, delete topic, search engine, customizable UBB codes, customizable HTML codes, user profiles, lost password retrieval, mass message deletion, mass message lock, mass user deletion, etc.
- XMB Forum
XMB is a PHP forum that uses a MySQL database for storage. The free version puts footers and embeds HTML tags into your pages. You are not allowed to remove these footers/tags.
- Phorum Message Board
Phorum is a PHP based message board with support for threads and interfaces with MySQL, PostgreSQL and possibly others.
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