Vanilla software forum

An enjoyable forum user experience. No matter your objective, your success depends on a great user experience. Vanilla is a re-imagining of how community engagement should be done, and users love it. Discussion Types In addition to standard discussions, Vanilla allows users to post questions and polls. Rich Content Members can format posts with html, markdown, or bbcode. Notifications An unequaled notification system keeps members abreast of anything that they care about happening in the community.

Powerful user profiles Every member gets a profile that they can customize with their personal information. Auto-save Vanilla auto-saves your content as you are entering it so that you can close the window on purpose or by accident, and your hard work will not be lost.

Avatars Vanilla hosts a free service called Vanillicon. Powerful Search Autocomplete helps users find what they are looking for quickly. Private Messaging Users can have private one-on-one discussions, or they can bring multiple people into the conversation.

Groups Suited for larger communities, this feature lets members form smaller groups where they can hold discussions and schedule events. Single Sign On Eliminate barriers to participation by providing a seamless login and registration experience using SSO.

Integrate your community with social networks Vanilla makes it easy to share great content from your community to social networks - which draws in more people to your community. Social Logins Vanilla supports the most popular social logins, reducing the time-to-post and increasing the likelihood of engaging a visitor. Open Graph Vanilla uses the Open Graph protocol to help social media display the right content when shared. Be in complete control Administrators love our intuitive dashboard that lets you manage every aspect of your community forum: view stats, manage users and configure your account.

Vanilla's plugin system makes it easy to turn on the features that make sense for you. Forum Settings Vanilla can look plain and simple on the outside but it is an extremely powerful and flexible platform.

Plugin System Configure your community with plugins and add-ons so that you can provide the right functionality without unnecessary bloat. User Management Create, edit and delete users and user use-cases. Roles and Permissions Vanilla gives you fine-grained control of what members can do and what they can see with role based permissions. Create Roles Control fine-grained, role-based permissions that can be assigned on a per forum category basis. Private Community Vanilla can be set to be completely private.

Flarum is a new contender in the forum software market. Flarum is fully responsive and super mobile-friendly. It has larger buttons, infinite scrolling, smooth animations, and a message composer that floats on the screen. So, you can keep scrolling through the page without having to exit the message box and lose what you typed. Its features are reminiscent of a social media site, for example with the Pusher extension users can live chat.

When you throw in the fact that you can post mentions to other users much like Twitter, Flarum goes from an ordinary forum program to one of the best free forum software. It can even rival the best forum software programs that have premium options. A WordPress integration is currently in the works along with many other features such as anti-spam, statistics, keyboard shortcuts, private messaging, gamification options, and more.

Invision Power Board is a premium forum program best suited for businesses. Although, it can still be great for individuals who are public figures or for those who want to be social media influencers. Not only can you use this as a forum, but you can also use it as a support ticket system, eCommerce platform, CMS, file-sharing system, a blog, and more.

Invision Power Board is also incredibly flexible, meaning you can even customize the activity feed on a per-user basis. Its admin panel is intuitive, striking and lets you control absolutely everything about your forum. The forum itself also has an eye-catching, natural design and layout. It uses cloud hosting to ensure your forum loads quickly.

For example, you can install a plugin to let users mention other members on other social media platforms, like on Twitter. Automatic daily backups, and unlimited staff and community members also come with all plans. There you have it: Not only are these the best forum software, but some of them are the best free forum software options as well.

Your next steps for building a forum would be:. Were you able to choose the forum software best suited for your needs? What are you looking for in forum software? What do you consider to be the best forum software or the best free forum software?

Share your thoughts in the comments below. Jenni McKinnon Staff Writer. Twitter Facebook. Simple and flexible forum software. Great for enthusiasts and small businesses. Community Forums Reinvented Create an online community that your customers will love. Business A robust cloud-based community forum solution. We believe that online communities should be intuitive, engaging and true to your brand.