PHP Forums Review by Xakep_INCIn this review, I will be testing three forums(YaBB SE, phpBB and InvisionBoard). Each forum will be reviewed by security, cosmetic, customization, support and ease of use criterias. The security part is tested with the
http://www.securityfocus.com/ search function. I hope this review will help to someone who will need to set up a forum.
InvisionBoardThis is the first forum I will review and I will start from the obviously fist thing, the installation. When you launch the installation file, you are automatically transfered to a nice introduction screen, which says which information you will be asked for. The next step of the installation is a clean screen with fields for the data needed.
After you finish the installation process, it asks you to delete the installation file, and makes a lock file so no one will be able to reinstall without removing the lock.
After you delete the install file, and enter the url of the forum in your bowser, you are transfered to a nice, professional looking index page. The only bad side of it could be that there is too much information, presented at once.
While testing the posting and threads functions of InvisionBoard, I found no major lacks of features, and no obvious bugs. The forum is more or less user friendly, and the speed is nice(There is gzip compression support).
The next step of testing was accessing the Admin Panel. The admin panel is very function rich. You can do many things there, and There is always a list of admin areas at the left of the page.
My overall impression from the admin panel was that it has many funcitions, but it is a little messy, and a little user unfriendly. The customization in it is very easy, you can edit every part of the CSS or HTML templating without even leaving the admin panel. The template is divided to categories and sub categories, so it will be easier to edit it. The security search(
http://www.securityfocus.com/search?query=invision) returned 14 results.
Rating(x=rating/y=max):Installation ease - 4/5
Functions - 5/5
User Friendly - 3/5
Visual Quality - 5/5
Security - 4/5
Speed - 5/5
YaBB SEFirst thing that I want to say, is that this forum has no real connection to the perl YaBB forum. So any stereotypes should be removed
Again, I will start with the installation.
When you launch the install process, you are welcomed by a not so graphically shining interface, which asks you to fill some forms. The good thing about it, is that there is a good explanation to every field, and most of the technical fields are usually there for your verification(They are filled automatically).
After finishing the installation process, you are aksed to delete the installation file. After you do this, you can go to the forum index. The forum is clean, and professional looking(Although not so shiny as InvisionBoard). All of the features are there. You can start polls, threads, reply, attach files, and do lots of other actions.
The speed was good, and the forum is very user friendly. The admin panel has many functions as well, it looks a little more organized than Invision's one, but to access a different admin page, you must go back to the admin main page and chose the destination, which is a little time taking. The customization was a little dissapointing. The whole editing center is a little text field with a HTML page on it, with no actual dividing to categories.
The security search(
http://www.securityfocus.com/search?query=yabbse) returned only 6 results.
Rating(x=rating/y=max):Installation ease - 5/5
Functions - 4/5
User Friendly - 5/5
Visual Quality - 4/5
Security - 5/5
Speed - 5/5
phpBBTo be honest, this forum was the most dissapointing one of them all. Read and see why.
The installation process was pretty easy. There was only one step, in which I was asked for some information. The script warned me, and asked to delete two directories.
The index page was clean, but it was a little dark and "boring" comparing to the other forum's design. All the basic functions were there, but some were missing or not implemented right. I found no attachment function, and the not read threads are detected by your last visit, which means that if you miss at thread, you won't see it as a new one at your next visit.
The speed was good, the forum is user friendly, but as I said, abit "boring". The admin panel is similiar to the one you see in InvisionBoard. It has a list of areas at the left. It is more organized than the one in InvisionBoard, but not as friendly as the one in YaBB SE.
The "on place" customization is a dissapointment. You can only change few font colors and texts. To make a nicer customization, you need to mess with uploading and editing template files(They are organized by parts though, which is good). The security part was surprising. The search(
http://www.securityfocus.com/search?query=phpbb) returned 60(!!!!) results. Who says even the Perl YaBB is buggy after that?
Rating(x=rating/y=max):Installation ease - 5/5
Functions - 3/5
User Friendly - 4/5
Visual Quality - 3/5
Security - 2/5
Speed - 5/5
ConclusionAfter this test, I concluded that if you want lots of features, and customization. It's better to use YaBB SE or InvisionBoard. phpBB is not an option(Well.. Maybe if you will install 100 mods
... ). YaBB SE seems to be the choice if you want a user friendly and a clean forum. InvisionBoard has more features, but it's a little flashy and not organized. phpBB needs a major update, that all what I can say...
Author