Last Updated on: 10th December 2023, 12:29 pm
Web site: vanillaforums.com
Category: Network
Subcategory: Forums
Platform: Cross-platform
License: GNU GPL
Interface: Web Interface
Wikipedia: Vanilla Forums
First release: July 1, 2006
Vanilla Forums – a lightweight discussion forum application, written in the PHP programming language, using the Garden framework. Vanilla is an open source application, released under the GNU GPL license. Since 2009, Vanilla is also offered in the form of a paid service (SaaS) hosted on the Vanilla server.
A founder of the project is Mark O’Sullivan, whose early versions of Vanilla were offered to the community of creators and developers associated with the author of the project.
The highlights of the application include:
– light kernel
– support for plugins that increase the capabilities of the application, e.g. chat, private messages, “who’s online”, attachments
– integration with other FOSS projects such as WordPress
– importer from other forum applications such as vBulletin and phpBB
– embedded Vanilla (possibility to embed the forum into any application via JavaScript)
– unlimited number of categories
– support for themes and plugins
– file upload – as a plugin
– visual editor (WYSIWYG) – as a plugin
– emoticons – as a plugin
– logging in via social networks
– comment system
There is a commercial fork called PlushForums based on Vanilla Forums 2.0.