Vanilla Forums vs Open Social

Struggling to choose between Vanilla Forums and Open Social? Both products offer unique advantages, making it a tough decision.

Vanilla Forums is a Social & Communications solution with tags like open-source, forum-software, community-forum, customizable, plugins, themes.

It boasts features such as Open source, Highly customizable, Plugins and themes, User management, Forum management, Conversations, Notifications and pros including Free and open source, Active community support, Highly extensible and customizable, Feature rich out of the box, Good documentation, Multi-lingual support.

On the other hand, Open Social is a Social & Communications product tagged with social, networking, interoperability, profiles, friends, activities, messaging.

Its standout features include Enables social features like user profiles, friend connections, activities, and messaging, Allows developers to build social apps across platforms, Provides a common API for accessing social data across sites, Supports OpenID for single sign-on authentication, Includes JavaScript client libraries for building apps, Integrates with popular frameworks like Shindig, and it shines with pros like Simplifies social app development, Reduces duplication of effort for developers, Increases reach by enabling apps to work across sites, Leverages open standards for greater adoption, Enables data portability between social platforms.

Feature	Vanilla Forums	Open Social
Overall Score	N/A	N/A
Primary Category	Social & Communications	Social & Communications

Product Overview

Vanilla Forums

Description: Vanilla Forums is an open source forum software that allows you to set up and run a full-featured community forum. It is highly customizable with plugins and themes.

Open Social

Description: OpenSocial is an open standard API for social networking sites that allows developers to build interoperable social applications across different platforms. It enables social features like user profiles, friend connections, activities, and messaging to be easily added to third-party websites and applications.

Key Features Comparison

Vanilla Forums Features

• Open source
• Highly customizable
• Plugins and themes
• User management
• Forum management
• Conversations
• Notifications

Open Social Features

• Enables social features like user profiles, friend connections, activities, and messaging
• Allows developers to build social apps across platforms
• Provides a common API for accessing social data across sites
• Supports OpenID for single sign-on authentication
• Includes JavaScript client libraries for building apps
• Integrates with popular frameworks like Shindig

Pros & Cons Analysis

Vanilla Forums

Pros

• Free and open source
• Active community support
• Highly extensible and customizable
• Feature rich out of the box
• Good documentation
• Multi-lingual support

Cons

• Steep learning curve
• Requires technical expertise to set up and manage
• Limited native mobile support
• Not as user friendly as proprietary options

Open Social

Pros

• Simplifies social app development
• Reduces duplication of effort for developers
• Increases reach by enabling apps to work across sites
• Leverages open standards for greater adoption
• Enables data portability between social platforms

Cons

• Limited adoption outside of Google sites
• Complexity of supporting multiple social platforms
• Requires sites to expose APIs and data
• Standards process can be slow to add new features

Pricing Comparison

Vanilla Forums

• Open Source
• Free

Open Social

• Open Source