SMF Vs. BBpress
In the past, drawings on cave walls, graffiti on public buildings and notices nailed to trees and telephone poles were popular ways to share information. Internet forums and message boards are the modern digital equivalent of the community cork bulletin board. SMF and bbPress are two Web-based software applications you can use to create your own Internet forum.
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SMF Overview
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Simple Machines Forum is an Internet forum application that has been in continuous development since 2003. SMF is written in the PHP scripting language and uses MySQL, PostgresSQL or SQLite databases to store message threads, user data and forum administration settings. SMF is customizable with themes and modules that extend the forum's feature set. SMF is owned and maintained by the nonprofit organization, Simple Machines. SMF is free and open source software under a version of the BSD license.
SMF Advantages
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SMF is a good choice for users who prefer a dedicated, simple to install, all-in-one Internet forum application instead of a plugin or an extension to a content management system. It contains many of the features Internet forum users expect, including the ability to search for topics and key words, RSS feeds, multiple language support, what you see is what you get or WYSIWYG text entry, discrete user permissions and file caching to increase performance.
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bbPress Overview
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BbPress is a free, open source application from the developers of the blogging platform WordPress. BbPress is WordPress plugin that features a clean familiar user and administrator interface, multiple forums, "Hot Topics" heat maps, RSS feeds, templates and further extensibility through plugins. Installing bbPress requires a minimum of three steps. First, you must install a current version of WordPress. Next you must download bbPress, extract the contents from the archive file and upload them to the "plugins" directory of your WordPress installation. The third step is the activation of the bbPress plugin.
bbPress Advantages
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BbPress is ideal for users who already host and manage their own WordPress blog and would like to add basic Internet forum capabilities. BbPress can be installed quickly and integrated with the base WordPress blog. BbPress shares user data, cookies and login status with the blog. BbPress is administered and updated like other WordPress plugins. Updates to WordPress software may require bbPress to be upgraded as well.
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