Author Topic: Switching from phpBB2 to SMF (Read 18899 times)

gsaurus · « **Reply #15 on:** September 05, 2010, 01:32:34 pm »

I'm using SMF for some years and I really like it. I find it simple to configure and to plug in packages.
I can't really compare it with other systems because I never used other than SMF. But for what I've seen and by knowing of friends having some problems with phpBB, I got thinking that SMF was really the right choice.
If you're about to change then I support the decision of going with SMF.

I still use the version 1.1.x (currently 1.1.11) with TinyPortal v0.9.8 - yeah well a bit of fancy doesn't hurt that much, but if people really care about keeping it simple and flat just use a flat theme with few adds.

I subscribe Balder, install it in another DB and play a bit with it :wink:

Svenstaro · « **Reply #16 on:** September 05, 2010, 10:19:59 pm »

I've been using PHPBB2 for a long time and migrated my forums to PHPBB3 quite some time ago and I quite like it. In my opinion, it is very usable, nicely customizable, has a lot of cool addons and good community support. I especially like the advanced captchas. I haven't had a single spam bot with them.

I can't comment on SMF. I am a frequent user of PunBB forums though and they are quite fast as well. I can't comment on them from an administrative point of view.

Laurent · « **Reply #17 on:** September 05, 2010, 10:52:37 pm »

Quote

I've been using PHPBB2 for a long time and migrated my forums to PHPBB3 quite some time ago and I quite like it. In my opinion, it is very usable, nicely customizable, has a lot of cool addons and good community support. I especially like the advanced captchas. I haven't had a single spam bot with them.

"nicely customizable" -> from my own experience, installing a new add-on is tedious. You have to apply the modifications manually in all the files; I think other forums let you install add-ons automatically in a single click.

And what about database usage?

Svenstaro · « **Reply #18 on:** September 05, 2010, 11:04:51 pm »

There is a popular one clickable installer for PHPBB3 addons called "MODX" but I prefer installing addons manually since I would want to review all modifications to my forums. Addons have huge security implications.

What do you mean by database usage? According to phpmyadmin, it uses 62 tables and the posts table containing 5000 posts currently comes down to less than 4MiB. My database backups compress to around 5MiB (with all tables and extra stuff).

I'm using MySQL 5.

I don't really have much to complain about in PHPBB3 personally but as I said I also don't have much to compare it with.

Laurent · « **Reply #19 on:** September 05, 2010, 11:23:31 pm »

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What do you mean by database usage?

I mean: is it high or low compared to other forums. But I already have your answer

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I also don't have much to compare it with

Tank · « **Reply #20 on:** October 05, 2010, 09:10:43 am »

Just saw this thread. We're using SMF for the German SFML forum at forum.sfml-dev.de. Works pretty well and fast. However, you won't find a general forum software that's implemented well enough to say: "Wow, clean code and database design."

nfries88 · « **Reply #21 on:** October 27, 2010, 11:47:03 pm »

I use SMF2 for my personal site. It's pretty good (SMF1 was a bit lacking in features, and required complex add-ons to make it an effective forum. SMF2 is a major improvement) and has been stable for me. There's already a nice number of add-ons (or whetever they call them) available for it, too.

I wouldn't switch from phpBB, though. It may not have been the greatest choice, but it hasn't exactly done you wrong either. The pains aren't worth the gains.

azkay · « **Reply #22 on:** November 04, 2010, 05:27:37 am »

Quote from: "Mindiell"

Maybe you can have a look at punBB. I used it once and it was a light and simple forum engine. But I'm not sure that it could solve your problems, I don't remember its features exactly.

Better yet, FluxBB.

It doesnt have any of the features you want, but its got loads of mods that fix that problem.

bastien · « **Reply #23 on:** November 05, 2010, 02:08:27 am »

I'm a big fan of PunBB/FluxBB as an end user. It's simple and beautiful, it looks much more serious than PHPBB in my opinion.

nulloid · « **Reply #24 on:** January 03, 2011, 05:21:43 am »

I feel people will throw stones at me for this, but what about registering a free forum at freeforums.org? Don't have to bother databases, don't have to pay for it, etc. Also, you will be in full control of the forum. It uses phpbb3.

scorch · « **Reply #25 on:** August 13, 2011, 05:30:31 pm »

Hi. Just wanted to say that the final realease of SMF 2.0 is already out, and I have personal experience in a community using it, as a moderator, and it is very good in UI and functionalities, but is bad i code. If you want to change is source code, you may get a bit confuse (or worst.) However, it has a huge plugins database.

Laurent · « **Reply #26 on:** August 13, 2011, 06:20:14 pm »

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Just wanted to say that the final realease of SMF 2.0 is already out

Ah! This is a very good news. I hope that database converters are now working, and that support for sharing a common users database between two forums is better.

Lo-X · « **Reply #27 on:** August 13, 2011, 10:14:12 pm »

Quote from: "Laurent"

I hope that database converters are now working, and that support for sharing a common users database between two forums is better.

Ah, my question was : what about existing threads, I've my answer.

Feel free to change, but I like when it's simple and clear