Simple Machines Forum (SMF) is an open source Internet forum (BBS) application which lets you set up an online community very quickly. The application is written in PHP and uses a SQL database backend, from version 2.0 MySQL, PostgreSQL and SQLite are supported.
The software is designed to provide you with all the features you need from a bulletin board while having a minimal impact on the resources of the server.
SMF features a powerful Package Manager, allowing you to quickly apply any of the hundreds of modifications that are available.
Features include:
- Comprehensive template system.
- Advanced permission and user management.
- Supports multiple languages at once.
- Open and well-documented source code.
- Tracking of new and old unread topics, not just from your last visit.
- Designed for optimal performance and scalability.
- Multi-media output (XHTML, XML, RSS, WAP).
- Multi-language support from a large community.
- Package manager that automatically installs or uninstalls mods (also known as hacks).
- Search the entire forum, a category/board or within a topic.
- Search within your personal messages.
- Security features.
- SMF is available in over 47 languages including Albanian, Arabic, Bengali, Bulgarian, Catalan, Chinese, Croatian, Czech, Danish, Dutch, English, English British, Esperanto, Finnish, French, Galician, German, Greek, Hebrew, Hindi, Hungarian, Indonesian, Italian, Japanese, Kurdish, Macedonian, Malay, Norwegian, Persian, Polish, Portuguese, Romanian, Russian, Serbian, Spanish, Slovak, Swedish, Thai, Turkish, Ukrainian, Urdu and Vietnamese
Website: www.simplemachines.org
Support: Manual, FAQ, GitHub code repository
Developer: The SMF Team
License: 3-clause BSD License
SMF is written in PHP and uses MySQL for database management. It’s built around established industry standards and has a good track record for security. Learn PHP with our recommended free books and free tutorials.
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