What is miniBB?

miniBB® is a standalone, open source software for building your own Internet forum, it's free to download, and highly customizable. It's a genuine script, professionally written from scratch using a simple PHP code, but being not a clone or port to any existing forum program. Comparing to the other message board apps available on the market, miniBB just brings what it's created for: an easy, lite, and speedy quick forum. If you'd like a simple and stable community attached to your existing website at the deepest integration level, incl. the customization of the layout to the look of your website, or even synchronizing with the existing membership system, you've just came across to the best forum software, developed exactly for such purpose.

What miniBB could bring for your website?

The live Bulletin Board, or so called "Forums" attached to a business-oriented website or personal blog, helps to discuss and solve questions and problems, bring different people up for the definite purpose, collect more targeted audience around you and your company. But even if you'd like to run a standalone forum, miniBB have examples of biggest communities, handling millions of posts, thousands of users and gigabytes of daily traffic run on average hardware. This software may also let you earn with contextual advertising programs: its clear and optimized code brings blazing results for the search engines optimization (SEO). To this point of reliability, quick guest posting and fast moderation will help to grow your forum rapidly.

How would miniBB stand up to the competition?

In any area, it's important to be different, and miniBB should satisfy everybody in the aspect of providing a unique forum. Our Gallery and Showcase show just few examples of how this program could be adjusted to fully match your website and tastes, at the time keeping possibilities of instant upgrades. You can build your own version of the core in seconds, using the revolutionary auto-compiling tool, or manually add only those extensions and functions required by your community, that way combining a low-cost solution with enterprise features. Check our full demo page to see all major features you forum may finally have plugged-in.

Is miniBB the right choice exactly for you?

Installing forums on your own means finding your own niche that benefits from in-depth discussion. Whenever and whatever you may search for in Google, in most cases points to forums and well structured discussions. Most important requests are not about food and rock-star shoes, so nobody would truly care what's posted on Instagram or X, 'cause it's sort of a temporary information; but it does matter if something is found on a truly prolific forum. MiniBB is a great tool for this: besides of its light-weight presentation, it organizes the information in a very brief and accessible look and it immediately brings up the most important for easy access: The Worthwhile Content.

For what targeting audience would you need to maintain forums?

While YouTube is for video makers and Instagram for photographers, forums are for readers — those who love to read, reads a lot and who reads fast. Readers are met often than composers and writers, and they are quite a big audience, which is nowadays plunged to multi-media oceans. But Text still stays to be the quickest method of receiving information. Imagine you have to get some phone code, or discover why is aphid eating an apple tree leafs. Watching video means sharing at least 5 minutes to it — but in a Text you could find the same in seconds. Forums are exactly about well-structurized and topics-organized model of contents, it's a box of information built by your community for the quickest delivery of five-stars knowledge.

How miniBB-based forums compare to a Social Network?

The majority of modern users, tied up to the Facebook or whatever social network, may not even imagine an another life of the Internet. Their questions could be like: What? Forums?.. Do I really need to check this out?.. And the answer is simple: Yes! To the opposite of clumsy UX, forums provide more possibilities in not just advanced posting, but also allowing to read, track, and search the information, which has been collected and archived even for years — Great information that could never be found on social networks or often even a static website. While you could run a social group for marketing, try to install and run your own forum for SEO content and profits — this is a method, which brings you all the control of how you earn and learn from efforts invested. And — miniBB is a great start here, because it's easy for novices, and in some ways looking similar to the basic interface of a social network, yet providing everything for a dynamic and content-rich discussion.

Does miniBB comply with a suitable community management?

When it comes to an online community building and management strategies, the last thing you should worry about, is how your forum looks and what are "the features" of it. The No.1 thing is what your community is about, how active and professional it is, how you attract fresh new members, and how you decline waste. MiniBB makes it all quite simple: the quick yet effective moderation of the forum could be spread to a trusted staff of members, and they are able to arrange the forums contents and its members straight from the screens of live pages, without going deeply in the "administrative panels", which in the "overbloated software" may be so difficult to drive in. This makes the forum management easy and transparent, and there are also extra tools for keeping an instant eye on the contents and members, with no giving chance to spammers or fake accounts. Anyone could be a moderator, and anyone could be banned: follow the law of equality for all, but stay the only One King Admin over your forum — that what it means the proper management hierarchy in miniBB, which is proven for years on top forums.

Is miniBB made responsive to mobile devices?

Besides of social networks often called as "biggest enemies of forums", mobile devices, and specifically smartphones, now take the huge role in online discussions. Most forums are not coded for smartphones, — but miniBB is. Any forum based on miniBB, could be plugged in with the constantly updated "Mobile template" module, which represents the layout adopted for small-sized screens. That way, both the Desktop and Mobile modes of miniBB are not duplicates, just working on the same core, which if upgraded, works out two designs at once. But even if you run the default template only, it will easily pass the Mobile-Friendly Test: "Page is mobile friendly" is a desired result even for your startup forum with no additional mobile plugin installed, isn't it?..

How about 3rd party libraries?

The only external connection, which the newest version of miniBB is tied with by default, leads to Google fonts; however even that could be easily removed and replaced by using generic web fonts supported by all major browsers up to your own taste. Besides of it, this forum program works with no dependencies to any 3rd party libraries like AJAX-based scripts/jQuery, or stylesheets, meaning it is fully autonomous, and could be run with no hassle on intranet, local networks, and old browsers. All client-based codes in miniBB like JavaScript and CSS are standalone, and executed from the same server as the forum, supposing the maximum stability of the proper displaying online, with no calling of different servers and attendant interruptions.

Would miniBB track your Privacy?

"You don't tell anyone who you are, you can't use your real name": that's literally the first rule of any online interaction. MiniBB is one of the engines, which by default is really free from the spyware, ransomware, adware, and any referenced code traces. That's why, it's one of the rare forum programs, which in no way tracks the visitors, or allows tracking from aside, and its default registrations do not include any personal or secure information. This all helps to provide the best focus on sensible debates based on facts, open opinions, and worth advices — the only actions which the true forum software should supply. Choosing miniBB for your forum, you tend being free from imprints, censorship, and fake news world.

How long would miniBB work with a one-time investment?

There may be two major types of the online discussion: one about every-day top subjects (politics, gadgets, sports, music etc.), another about long-term talks of a certain subject (which could be your website, or any specific project). MiniBB is a great tool for any of them, or even their combination. You may plan your forum as a little communication board with a minimal time investment in its support and develoment ("start, run & forget" principle); or you could plan a big forum with a growing potential and instant moderation ("invest, go & grow" principle). In any case, if you make a step out of its free version, miniBB would require only a fair initial investment in a basic forum, and it rather wouldn't require any annual subscriptions or license fees. It's a tool, which extras are purchased only once, but then they work for years. You may safely plan more time and investments into developing your community, rather than the software itself.