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Vanilla Forums alternatives

Paid 25 alternatives

Official website

Vanilla provides a best-in-class Online Community and Customer Forums Software that allows you to enhance the customer experience by enabling collaboration between customer and brand to nurture loyalty, maximize engagement and improve support. Place the needs of Customers before everyone else and have them stay by your side for a long, long time.

The software is suitable for multiple professions such as Marketing/Brand Champion, Customer Support Leader, Product Manager, and Customer Experience Executive. All of these individuals have one thing in common, which is to provide a better service to their audience and generate results that help them stand out from the rest, resulting in them making a name for themselves in the world.

The solution is bundled with many features that are to be expected from its type, and these assist you in your tasks. The features include Forums, Knowledge Base, Q&A, Gamification, Themes, Moderation, Developer tools, Analytics, Events, Groups, Integrations, and Multi-Forum. Developers can use the simple yet powerful RESTful API to integrate Vanilla seamlessly with their application or website.

Each and every API endpoint are shown and are stored in the Dashboard. Additionally, you can implement Social logins to allow users to sign in using their OpenID, LinkedIn, Steam, Facebook, Google, or Twitter credentials. Lastly, Vanilla can be easily integrated with many apps like GitHub, Zapier, Zendesk, and WordPress.

Ranked alternatives

1
PunBBFree
PunBB is an efficient and lightweight discussion board written in PHP. It is open-source and released under the GNU General Public License. Among its goals is to be easier, faster, and simple for the end-user. You will find it to be one step ahead with many discussion boards in the market. While it does have a few features but this doesn’t mean it is not self-sufficient.
As a matter of fact, it is designed keeping in mind the needs of the userbase and ensures the administrator has what they need to provide a place for discussion to their community. PunBB has over 1,000 users, and the number is expanding day by day. Many online discussions boards use their power to enable productive communication for their community.
PunBB alternatives
2
Jitbit .NET ForumPaid
Jitbit .NET Forum is a message board written in C# ASP.NET framework. Thanks to its architecture, you can easily integrate it with many .NET websites, and this applies to authentication and design. It is super fast, affordable, and is loved by many members because of these qualities. The Forum source codes licenses are available, and the forum works smoothly with multiple databases like MySQL, MS SQL Servers, as well as MS Access.
The message board provides multiple customization features, allowing you to modify the look-and-feel of the forum and make the necessary changes to it to enable existing users to access it through built-on Auth-API or ASP.NET authentication. Security is the most important aspect of all discussion boards online as they contain valuable user information. The security features adopted by Jitbit .NET Forum include Email Activation, SPAM Protection, and more.
You can create user groups, assign reading and posting permission to users, activate user accounts by email, moderate messages to eliminate inappropriate content, and more. One of the best features is that your users can sign in with their Facebook and Twitter accounts. The only thing that needs to be done is for you to specify the “API Key” in the settings, and that’s it. Other features include Email notifications, highly secure, Source codes available for web developers, and Authentication integration.
Jitbit .NET Forum alternatives
3
ForumbeePaid
Forumbee provides feature-rich Community forums and a knowledge base to help you boost customer engagement and improve product support with an online user community for your app or website. It is currently used and loved by many Forward-Thinking companies across the globe. One of its prominent features is Discussion Forums that help you enable peer-to-peer discussions and link brand advocates and product experts.
Give customers a medium to ask questions, transfer ideas, and engage in discussions with each other. Use upvotes to spark engagement, and grow the visibility of famous contributions. Collaboration is enforced by enabling you to share files, videos, and images for self-expression. Add RTF formattings such as links, headings, inline images, and text colors. Those who are exchanging technical information can use code snippets to get the message across.
You can Pin essential topics on the first page for everyone to see the community posts or announcements. This makes it easy to mark some great questions and use custom labels to highlight staff replies. Members can create personal profiles to express themselves in a better way to visitors and promote community building. Customize the profile by adding links, photos, location, and bio to give more detail. Many features for engagement are also provided, like Private messaging, Nested replies, @mentions, Notifications, Quoting, and Live Updates.
Forumbee provides community analytics to enable administrators to gain customer insights. Get access to the most popular searches, content, ideas, and more. Identify the best contributors and trend member engagement. Leverage Engagement & Activity users to keep an eye on the community activity. Find out the number of unique users viewing and participating in the desired period.
Forumbee alternatives
4
FUDforumFree
FUDforum is a feature-rich and open-source internet forum software that was originally shipped by Advanced Internet Designs Inc. but is now looked after by the user community. The abbreviation of its name is Fast uncompromising Discussion forum. It has many similarities to other software and offers customization options as well as a big set of features. The solution works on all those operating systems that support PHP like Windows, Unix, and Linux. It uses various databases like SQLite, IBM DB2, PostgreSQL, MS-SQL, and oracle to store the data.
The UI sports a simple and plain look and is based on AJAX, HTML5, jQuery, and CSS to offer a better experience to the user. The features include User Avatars, Custom profile fields, Search engine friendly URLs, Poll creation, Forum calendar, Private messaging system, IP blocking and user blacklisting, Admin, User, and Moderator Control panels, Plugin module to add more features to the forum, and an option to store messages on either the database or filesystem for better performance.
FUDforum alternatives
5
PhorumFree
Phorum is a top-notch and flexible discussion forum software built using PHP and MySQL. It began in 1998 and since then has evolved into the version you see today. Its performance was optimized to meet the needs of the community. Thanks to this, it is able to host thousands of posts without breaking. The solution gives everyone the freedom to make it function according to their requirements.
The developers are of the mind that each individual should be given the authority to use the provided tools to their fullest without being restricted. Phorum features a flexible hook and module system that is made in a way to satisfy the needs of webmasters and all those that want to add a unique touch to their website. The Webmaster can use the hooks to create modules to use external authentication, adding custom information, altering message data before storing it. Lastly, developers have the power to change the positioning of data the way they see fit.
Phorum alternatives
6
JforumFree
Jforum is an easy-to-use and robust forum solution developed as a Java web app. It offers translations in many languages and requires nothing more than a Servlet 3.1 that can work with a servlet container running on Java 8, as well as a functional database for storing data. It is released under the BSD license, and the open-source code can be accessed, viewed, and modified by anyone. The installation procedure is really simple and takes a little time to complete.
The features include Easy migration from phpBB, Unlimited topics, forums, categories, Status of currently online users, quick integration with Google Analytics, Karma system, support for multiple databases like HSQLDB, MySQL, SQLServer, PostgreSQL, and Oracle, Friendly URLs, and Bookmarks. Jforum offers a plethora of Moderation features to help you maintain discipline and make the right decisions. The characteristics include Ease of moderation, a Moderation log that stores moderation actions, the ability to lock and unlock topics, a Trash Can for keeping the deleted posts away from everyone, and a function to move topics between forums.
The forum software places a great emphasis on Permissions and Security, and this is evident as it provides features like a Powerful security system, Read-only forums, Reply-only forums, Secure against CSRF, and XSS attacks Giving moderators various control levels, and Advanced HTML filter, for maximum security. The software is multilingual with support for English, German, Spanish, Portuguese, Chinese, Italian, Russian, French, and Dutch. Other features include User banning, Member Listing, Support for individual templates/themes for users, and more.
Jforum alternatives
7
Advanced Electron ForumsFree
Advanced Electron Forums is a state-of-the-art Bulleting Board developed using PHP and MySQL. It comes with a simple yet powerful Administration Panel that contains all the functions you need to oversee the forum. The installation process takes a few minutes to complete and is a piece of cake. The administrator can change the themes or install new ones. Users can set their preferences for the board by interacting with the User Control Panel. The features include ShoutBox, UTF-8 Support, Automatic Updates, Search Engine Optimization Tools, Time Zone Adjustment, Export Files and Database, News system with articles, IP Ban, Suggest Framework for usernames that proves helpful when writing PM’s, JS Dock, and WYSIWYG Editors.
Advanced Electron Forums alternatives
8
Asgaros ForumFree
Asgaros Forum is a decent WordPress plugin that allows you to enhance the functionality of your website with a multi-features and powerful discussion board. It is lightweight, simple, and easy to use. You will have no trouble setting it up, thanks to its hassle-free installation process. The features include Guest Postings, Reactions, myCRED Integration, Ads Management, Simple Content Management, Uploads, Reporting, Banning and Uploads, Profile and Members List, SEO-friendly, Multisite Compatibility, Multilingualism, Usergroups, Moderators, and Permissions, Statistics, Widgets, Customizable Responsive Theme, and Multiple Instances.
Asgaros Forum alternatives
9
Board3Free
Board3 is an open-source solution released under the GPL 2.0 license that adds a portal with several blocks, giving you the ability to switch them on and off through the ACP to the phpBB 3 forums on the main page. You can modify the settings, change the positioning of modules, add new ones, and more via the admin area. The features include Responsive Design in prosilver, Portal on each and every page, Freedom to add an unlimited number of “custom blocks,” and many more.
Board3 alternatives
10
YaBBFree
YaBB is an Open Source Forum Software written in the Perl programming language. It has many use cases and serves as a medium through which you can communicate with customers or other people to enquire about their needs and provide support. Chat with fellow club members, neighbors, classmates, communities, and anyone who has the same interests as you. It is the number choice of many users and offers a lot of great features.
It gives the community the option to start a bullet board to serve as a core part of their website or simply as a stand-alone website and communication tool. Visitors can take use the support and real-time chat system to get their message across. The benefit of having YaBB is that it can be used by anyone to talk anytime, trumping chat programs that only allow people to talk directly. Create a community to enable everyone to engage in discussions while ensuring inappropriate content or bad behavior is punished.
The reason for choosing YaBB is simple. It is fully customizable, and everyone can modify it to suit their needs without much effort. Also, it is easy to set up and administer, comes with built-in security, spam eliminators, and censor controls. Security is top-notch, too, featuring encrypted passwords and usernames. There are no banning tools, follow links, and banning/auto-blocking tools.
YaBB alternatives
11
DiscourseFreemium
Discourse is an open-source platform that provides communities with civilized discussion service. The platform offers its users to escape emails and chat silos to engage in searchable discussions with the customers and fans. It allows companies to create a self-service hub with exciting ideas and useful discussions and lets the community cultivate a better conversation through its automatic trust system.
The platform has removed the hassle of arbitrary pages and comes with the power of in-time loading if the customers want to read more. Moreover, it has increased people to people interaction as it sends notifications to people when there post/comment is quoted by someone else. Discourse comes with a simple and user interface that allows users to see replies in the form of a waterfall and enables users to expand the conversations which they want to see without losing their position.
Discourse allows users to add links to their conversation to make them more exciting and informative. The platform comes with built-in integrations like Slack, WordPress, Zendesk, and many more to ease the use of this service. The platform is compatible with all the devices; laptops, tablets, and phones. Some key features are Spam blocking, Social Login, Badges, Single Sign-on, official plugins, and many more. Customer support is available via email and online, and the software comes with a free and a paid version.
Discourse alternatives
12
XenForoPaid
XenForo is a platform that allows the users to share content and discuss it with other members of the forum. The platform provides a place to keep the audience engaged, and this also lowers the burden on the customer support team as most of the queries solve on the forum. XenForo comes with a feature that helps users to recover the content of the members from any time and date.
It allows users to arrange the whole discussion on the forum in an aligned form to use this knowledge as a subject matter. Along with member-to-member chat, XenForo also provides group conversation facilities. The platform comes with a powerful permission feature, customizable options for the forum to fit it according to the brand, and has a ‘What’s new’ feature to make sure users see the latest updates.
The platform comes with amazing add-ons such as Media Gallery, which allows the users to manage, organize, or share all kinds of media content. It also provides them a Resource Manager, which helps the members to organize tutorials, guides, and other similar stuff. It comes with a fast search engine, which provides results in seconds from millions of posts. The platform comes with a paid version, and the technical support is available via email and online.
XenForo alternatives
13
VanillaPaid
Vanilla is online software that provides community forums for discussion on thousands of websites. The platform provides customers and potential clients to not only follow the brand but also engage in real-time conversation on it. This cloud-based platform allows the businesses to keep the audience engaged, can publish their content, even ads, and can boost sales through it. It allows users to host questions and polls; however, admin of the forum holds authority on all these activities.
Members in the forum can mention each other in discussions, and they will get a notification whenever they mentioned in the discussion. Some of the essential features of Vanilla are Moderation Tools, CRM Integrations, Gamification, Data migration, Collaboration, and Discussion Boards. It also enables the users to drag-and-drop pictures in their posts or to attach videos with it.
Furthermore, Vanilla provides every member with their own specific profiles and allows the members to preview and edit their comments in real-time. It also offers a Private community feature that will only allow the registered members to join, that too, on admin’s approval. Training for the forum is provided through webinars and online, while technical support is available online and 24/7. Moreover, the platform comes with a paid version, and users can request a free demo.
Vanilla alternatives
14
vBulletinFreemium
vBulletin is a platform that offers customizable forums and community solutions to all websites. The platform enables the website to host different types of discussion forums, blogs, polls, and groups to keep the customers engaged. The platform allows the users to have seamlessly integrated experience, such as it offers a single admin control panel, and the forum is of continuous style instead of pages.
Moreover, for easy use, it provides a control panel for every role like it has a user control panel, moderator control panel, template engine for advanced customization. vBulletin enables admins to edit, delete, move, or lock any post they want and provides users with private forums. The platform even allows the users to see when other members are reading their messages.
The forum allows the members to see who is online, enables them to create a friend list, and provides them with private messaging options. The latest version of vBulletin allows members to have a profile that tells other members about them, and they can add their pictures on their profile also. It comes with a permission system that allows the admins to add or ban any user. The platform offers a free trial and comes with a paid version, while customer support is available online.
vBulletin alternatives
15
FluxBBFree
FluxBB is an open-source platform that offers forum services to the community for engagement and communication. The platform is free, fast, and light and provides all the essential features which some other forums lack. The platform provides a clear and easy-to-use interface, which makes it easy for users to interact across different conversations on the forum.
Moreover, the platform offers the full admin control of their panel, which means admin can add or delete a user from the panel, and also allows them to change the structure and options of the forum. The flexible permission system gives the admin full authority over the users as he/she can restrict some part of the forum or can provide privileged access to other users.
Some of the key features included are XHTML compliant, GZip output, SQLite, External SMTP support, IPv6 support, Password hashing, and UTF-8 support. The platform comes with powerful moderator tools that enable the admins to ban, censor, or report post which are against the policies of the panel. Customer support is provided via online and email, and the software is free of cost.
FluxBB alternatives
16
NodeBBFreemium
NodeBB is a platform that offers a modern forum software that allows the engagement of community and brands. The platform comes with three different forums; Open Source, Instant Hosting, and Enterprise, and users can select them according to their demand. The platform comes with a mobile responsive platform that provides a perfect experience on every device and screen.
It supports different languages, which makes it an international platform and allows users to share content easily on other social platforms such as Twitter, Facebook, etc. Moreover, the platform offers real-time streaming of posts and data and provides users with real-time chats and notifications. NodeBB comes with an analytics dashboard that enables the users to see the content that users are enjoying most and enables the communities and brands to make better decisions.
It allows users to host a question and answer session and can mark the session as solved when their problem/ query is solved. The platform sends notifications in the background so that users never miss anything. NodeBB comes with various integration such as Pushbullet, Ghost, Mailchimp, Goog;e Adsense, etc. Training is provided through documentation and online, while customer support is available during business hours and online, and it comes with a free and a paid version.
NodeBB alternatives
17
MyBBFree
MyBB is an engagement and communication platform that allows users to have vibrant and exciting discussions. Volunteers run the platform, and the donation forms the community that keeps them going. The platform allows the users to attach various plugins to their forum, which ease their discussions such as Flatty, Vienna, Square, Smile Menu, and many other projects, and plugins can be attached to it. MyBB supports various languages and provides translation facilities to its users to facilitate cross-language conversations.
The platform, apart from public communication, allows the users to opt for private conversations, which enables them to create their group in the forum. It also allows users to track messages and see the read receipt and enables the exporting of messages in text and HTML format. MyBB comes attractive and exciting features that keep the users engaged and offer moderation tools to keep the discussion smooth, and the customer support staff solves the problems immediately.
It comes with a customizable interface that can be edited according to the user’s desired theme and provides built-in templates to design the forum and provides advanced theme editors and multiple style sheets. Moderators edit portions of the user profile and can ban users for a specific time, and can warn the users if they post any inappropriate content or shows an irregular behavior. Customer support is available via email, and the platform is free of cost.
MyBB alternatives
18
FlarumFree
Flarum is a platform that enables the engagement and interaction of the community through a managed discussion board. The platform ensures the access of the users even with a slow Internet connection and comes with lightning-fast speed. The platform comes with a friendly user interface that allows the customer to talk more and spend less time on the clicking.
The platform has ended the hassle of pages and provides users with an end-less scrolling and allows you to start from where you left. It enables users to visit other discussions while the users are writing their own. Flarum comes with a simple gesture, and smooth animations, such as users can swipe a discussion to the right by marking it as read.
Some other key features are Moderation tools, Powerful Formatting, Localization, Convenient Search, Real-time Discussion, and Search Engine Optimization. The platform allows users to customize the interface in that way they want with different color schemes and other features. Moreover, the platform provides smart notifications that keep users alert and offers email digest on a daily and weekly basis. Flarum is a free platform, and customer support is available via email.
Flarum alternatives
19
phpBBPaid
phpBB is a free forum that offers a discussion platform for a community or business. The platform comes with an easy registration feature and also requires parental approval for children, making it a secure platform. The platform provides users with private messaging services and enables the users to maintain custom PM folders, and users can send messages to multiple recipients.
For better communication, users can attach files with messages and allows them to send messages in a group. Users can customize groups with different group colors and can also add different avatars to different users. While phpBB send user notifications either through email or instant messaging.
phpBB allows the users to view all the online people on this platform and even enables them to have their own friend/foe list to tune the posts while browsing. It also provides different forums for all kinds of users, such as categorized organizational forums, password-protected forums, and individual forums. Moreover, it comes with various plugins, such as MySQL, APCu, Redis, and many more. The platform also comes with a paid text-link and image advertising for its users.
phpBB alternatives
20
Simple Machines ForumFree
Simple Machines Forum is a platform that provides users with an open-source internet forum and a message-board program. The platform allows users to have various features to customize the whole database and modify the platform. It offers users to make their groups for better and private conversations and can add new members into the groups with admin permission.
The platform comes with useful plugins such as MySQL, etc. and because of its advanced features, the platform is considered to be the next generation forum software. Training for the platform is provided through documentation, while customer support is available online. The platform also comes with a feature of paid advertising; however, the platform is free of cost.
Simple Machines Forum alternatives
21
Invision CommunityPaid
Invision Community is a platform that offers community management, which enables businesses to create and manage their online presence. The platform provides businesses with various facilities, i.e., flexible moderation, and permission tools to content promotion and spam management to ensure the online presence of the businesses.
The platform provides business a direct connection with their customers and enables them to resolve the customer’s issues before they start hurting the company’s reputation. Moreover, the platform allows the businesses to get feedback on their product and services and enables them to reward their best brand ambassadors. Invision Community allows the companies to reduce their cost with P2P support and creates a public knowledge hub for better interaction of users.
Some of the key features are Content discovery, Spam Defense, Security and Privacy, User Engagement, Monetization, CrowdSource Moderation, and Targeted Email Promotion. The platform allows the employees to enhance their collaboration, eliminates siloing, and provides thoughtful approaches to content. Customer support is available via email and online, and it comes with paid versions only.
Invision Community alternatives
22
esoTalkFree
esoTalk is an open-source and fat-free forum solution written in PHP and uses MySQL as its database. The goal behind its development is to be fast and offer smooth performance to the individual, meaning lower chances of encountering and speed issues while it’s being operated. It is simple and comes with easy-to-use interfaces with zero learning curve, allowing you to get started without bothering with training sessions. The solution is powerful and provides a huge number of skins and plugins to enhance the functionality and offer more options to the audience.
esoTalk alternatives
23
Gossamer ForumPaid
Gossamer Forum is forum software that you can use to enable members of your community to come and ask questions or provide answers to queries posted by others. It is lightweight, flexible, fast, and powerful. It has all the features you need to maintain discipline, make the desired customizations, and others. You can set it up in no time at all. The moderators are provided with the relevant authority to do their job with great ease. They can monitor discussions and delete the comments that are inappropriate, and even ban users.
Gossamer Forum alternatives
24
MightybellPaid
Mightybell allows you to create a business and community on mobile without hassle. It allows you to consolidate memberships, community courses, and events in a single place. The platform is regarded as full-featured and easy to use for brands and creators. The foundation for any successful brand begins with a base that is compelling, customizable, and can be used on mobile and desktop.
Create a place for people to come together, read your content, check events and learn from the available courses through the web and mobile apps. Create an amazing and visually appealing branding and personalized domain using the provided tools. The online courses provide a great opportunity for the community to learn new skills and equip themselves with the required toolset to meet the ever-changing demands of the industry.
Members can learn more much faster and climb higher at their own pace. Create memberships or charge fees for courses that offer premium content. Take advantage of the analytics module to gain full visibility into your revenue and retention.
Mightybell alternatives
25
Zimbra CommunitiesPaid
Zimbra provides a top-notch and powerful Forum solution that you can implement to enable communication between members of your communities. It is bundled with a bunch of features and aims to revolutionize the world of online Forums by giving full freedom to the administrator. It comes with various security features that allow you to have peace of mind knowing that all the data is safe and free from the clutches of unauthorized entities. You can delegate moderator authority to anyone and have them ensure discipline in the discussion boards. With this privilege, mods can block and remove content that goes against guidelines.
Zimbra Communities alternatives