What is miniBB?

miniBB (an abbreviation of "minimalist bulletin board") is a flat-type (not threaded) free web forum and discussion software, open source PHP bulletin board, written in PHP and using mySQL or another PHP-compatible database as data backend. But it's not from "yet one more bulletin board" series. First of all, it's a content- and support-oriented board, not a features-fullfilled script. We are not planning to include every possible feature that bulletin board may have, and we find it as a positive moment. While a lot of identical forum software comes up around, we have our strong critical position of how our bulletin board must look like, and we are glad many users are supporting this position. That's why we are paying more attention on really important things that most people need, but not on custom things needed by few people.

A Bulletin Bird

We call it that way, because it is small, light and "flying" like a bird, if we talk about speed. We are strongly optimizing and discussing each feature that must be implemented, getting great experience from our main individual web-development work, and utilizing it here. That's why it is much smaller than any other common board, and that's why it is much faster. From the other side, less code means: less bugs. A bird eats bugs, not bugs eat the bird. Inherited from the latest stable version 1.7, miniBB 2.x series open a new page in the history of miniBB, as we are planning to develop "software for ages".

Features of miniBB

"Mini" doesn't mean "nothing". Specially developed for small and medium forum communities, which have less than 100 unique posts per day, miniBB also can be used in large projects. If you take a look at miniBB settings file, or even our manual, you'll find lots of options, both for users and administrator, which allow full in-time control over the board. Each new version brings up not only error-fixes, but also new features which could be useful exactly for you. miniBB has not only most common options that another boards have, it is full of very specific, unique and useful moments which you won't find anywhere. You can download additional plug-ins and add even more features if you miss some of them. And, of course, you can get it working exactly for your domain, your server and operating system.

miniBB for users

Even your mom can use it! If bulletin board must have a simpliest possibility to post and get messages, miniBB has it. We have developed an interface as simple, as minimalized, as structured as possible. You don't need to go through many steps, to make your post appear on board; a couple of clicks - and you've saved five minutes from your life. You don't need to check if you've got new reply, or what's new on the board, going deeply underground; just open the first page - and you see everything what's happening there. While reading forums, you concentrate only on important information - user's postings; you don't see giant avatars or ugly color signatures.

miniBB for website developers

People who have used "maxi bulletin boards" probably know, that they are easily recognized. miniBB is not; you can integrate it completely into your site's design, modifying our original HTML-templates, and/or customizing fonts and colors in separate CSS-file, within minutes. And the sweet moment: your customized work will not be lost when you upgrade main PHP-scripts to new miniBB version, because it's completely separated from the PHP code. You can check some examples in our "Gallery" section - and you'll wonder, how miniBB could be customized meeting your graphical ideas. Non-english visitors can choose their language from more than 40 language packs available, and easily "translate" forums intefrace within seconds. Even more: in 2.x series, you can integrate miniBB not only by design, but also exactly by user's database, and do it by simply changing a couple of settings. If you already have a site, or another open-source software with an existing structure of users database, you can let miniBB use it as its own.

Coding miniBB

Having more than five years experience in web-developing, we are using only practicle techniques, which make our software simple and efficient. There are only two persons behind the miniBB code, and the coding of miniBB relays only on ourselves. We are appreciating any advices and suggestions, however, third-party developers are involved only in developing plug-ins, addons, not the main core. In our religion, this is what allows miniBB to be simple, smart and personified: less garbage-in, less garbage-out. However, even and specially PHP newbies will study miniBB code with pleasure. And those, who like laws and standarts, will find miniBB's W3C-compatible HTML and CSS.

Support of miniBB

Victims of many open-source forum software discover very weak support of the product which costs $0. In many cases, they even do not know what exactly to do with the downloaded file. miniBB has very detailed, step-by-step manual, which contains description of every feature and option available. Users who are active on our "live" forums, will see that we have very strong, faster-than-a-chat free support, related to actual miniBB problems, bugs and solutions. All critical errors are fixed by us, and patches are released immediately. If you have your personal web-project and need to customize miniBB for its needs, we are opened for commercial modifications done exclusively for you, and not released as open source. Our working rates will surprise you nicely, because we are located in Eastern Europe region, and our rates slightly differ from those you've stumbled accross worldwide. Low price doesn't mean quality loss: everybody from our commercial clients is satisfied, since we are interested in propagating our product and service only at a high-end level.

Get message board script miniBB - and start to make up your own community forum today!