Vanilla Forums

Vanilla Forums

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.
Vanilla Forums image
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Vanilla Forums: Open Source Forum Software

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.

What is Vanilla Forums?

Vanilla Forums is a flexible, open source forum software that enables you to build an online community platform. It has a modern, intuitive interface and is fully responsive for optimal viewing on any device.

Some key features of Vanilla Forums include:

  • User management tools like registration, login, profiles, roles/permissions
  • Robust discussion features such as threads, replies, searches, filters
  • Community engagement aspects like reputation points, badges, likes, private messaging
  • Moderation capabilities like flags, spam prevention, reporting
  • Customizability via themes, plugins, widgets, API options
  • Multilingual and RTL (right-to-left) language support
  • Mobile app available for iOS and Android
  • Import/export utilities, analytics integration, single sign-on

Vanilla Forums aims to balance ease of use with extensive capabilities so site owners can create everything from simple message boards to advanced community platforms. Its active open source community also contributes plugins and themes to enhance the software.

Vanilla Forums Features

Features

  1. Open source
  2. Highly customizable
  3. Plugins and themes
  4. User management
  5. Forum management
  6. Conversations
  7. Notifications

Pricing

  • Open Source
  • Free

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


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