Flarum vs phpBB

BrodyStone21

Hey guys, new to wanting to host a forum and I'm currently evaluating my options. I'm debating between phpBB, myBB, Flarum, and Discourse. I'm just not sure about the modern forum design. I personally like it for tech related things, but do kind of prefer a more traditional forum layout, like XenForo for most other things. It's a different feel, and I can't quite put my finger on what it is.

I know most people here will be biased, but would love to hear from people who were in the same situation as me in the past. In the future, I may switch to XenForo, but it looks like Flarum doesn't export data in a way compatible with XenForo. Are there any plans to change this?

How resource intensive is Flarum compared to other options? Can I disable infinite scrolling? I personally find it hard to navigate sometimes, mainly when a thread gets too long, and I believe others might as well.

Look forward to hearing from you guys!

luceos

BrodyStone21 but it looks like Flarum doesn't export data in a way compatible with XenForo. Are there any plans to change this?

Flarum fully supports Nitro Porter: linc/nitro-porter

BrodyStone21 How resource intensive is Flarum compared to other options?

Flarum is fully intended to run on shared hosting. It is meant for the smallest communities first, only later did we optimize for scale. Which it also can handle adequately.

BrodyStone21 Can I disable infinite scrolling?

Pagination should help: https://flarum.org/extension/gtdxyz/flarum-ext-discussion-paginator

BrodyStone21 do kind of prefer a more traditional forum layout

Categories extension should help: https://flarum.org/extension/askvortsov/flarum-categories

BrodyStone21 It's a different feel, and I can't quite put my finger on what it is.

You need to pick based on your needs, your requirements. We're only here to provide a valid option in your list of options.

Good luck 😉

User31

BrodyStone21

Hey I'm unsure whether this would be helpful for you, though in case otherwise, figured I'd mention it.

First off, for a little context: My (relatively limited) forum administration experience is primarily with XF. (December 2022—January 2024)

Put simply, in a sense, the XF system is essentially all I've known.

After leaving XF I explored all the most prominent alternatives, yet for various reasons I found them all lacking in some way or other, especially compared to XF.

😅By mid-February '24 I had genuinely given up bothering with forum administration because (to me) there just wasn't anything available other than XF that I'd consider being somewhat adequately provisioned for my intended purposes.

That is, until roughly a month ago when I decided to have a serious go at utilizing the Flarum systems via SKevo's wonderfully helpful FreeFlarum services.

For me, the first day of using a Flarum site, I found myself extremely skeptical of the Flarum systems viability as a substitute for XF (from my subjective pov).

😃 However by around day three I found that I was noticably becoming increasingly fond of the Flarum systems in general.

*Please note: I came into this near entirely ignorant of computery stuff overall, as well as of Flarum too.

From what I have currently (loosely) ascertained. I am under the impression that the Flarum system is primarily designed and intended to serve as a 'stripped down' basic fora template, like a 'blank slate', or a fresh foundation for us to freely create our own ideal fora's upon.
Although I really don't know whether my current interpretation is accurate or not.

Nonetheless, in case you were ever interested.
I'm sort of going for creating somewhat of a basic XF-esque style hybrid meta-fora-(with similar XF presentation & functionality).
Admittedly I'm still far from achieving my intended goals, however I've definitely made some (rough) progress over the few weeks since I began.

You are absolutely welcome to check out what I've been doing so far @Λsylum
Hopefully it can provide a little inspiration.

EDIT: At the moment (due to some major CSS experiments conducted yesterday) the mobile view of Asylum...😅is not very good. And I have no idea what Asylum looks like on a desktop screen.
I'm primarily using mobile-desktop view, by which (from my pov) the Asylum site currently looks somewhat half decent.

jslirola

Hi BrodyStone21

I can add another point of view to this discussion. I worked for 10 years under the phpBB system and I wanted to try more modern, responsive alternatives, with a notification system for users, the possibility of "likes".

It is possible that in the new versions of phpBB these possibilities already exist, but my forum was not very up to date and I wanted to take advantage of it to make a big change.

I did the migration myself, having experience in the sector. I have a document of about 20 pages that I wrote with the steps that I took, pieces of code related to my categories (here tags), etc... And I am very happy with the change, the community is very open, every day they present new things and good proposals for the future, any doubt that you have can be resolved quickly and you are not blocked by the lack of support.

So in my opinion, as @luceos says, it depends on your needs but I recommend this one 🙂

Make a comparison table of two systems that interest you and make the decision.

Regards