Simple Machines Forum — SMF in short — is a free, professional grade software package that allows you to set up your own online community within minutes.

Its powerful custom made template engine puts you in full control of the lay-out of your message board and with our unique SSI - or Server Side Includes - function you can let your forum and your website interact with each other.

SMF is written in the popular language PHP and uses a MySQL database. It is designed to provide you with all the features you need from a bulletin board while having an absolute minimal impact on the resources of the server. SMF is the next generation of forum software - and best of all it is and will always remain completely free!

General Features:

• Uses PHP and MySQL.


• 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.)

Security

• All actions seamlessly require a session based authorization code.


• Administrative actions require the user's password (and do not rely solely on cookies.)


• Major actions are time and IP locked, preventing 'hammering'.


• The number of login attempts from a certain IP can be limited and time locked.

Forum Settings

• Ability to display page creation time and query count per page.


• Put a board into maintenance mode, allowing only admins to login.


• Word censoring, either full word or partial.


• Ability to break up long words.


• Boards and Categories


• Group boards into collapsible categories.


• Set categories as non-collapsible.


• Reorder boards within categories, or reorder categories.


• Create child boards under other boards. (sub boards)


• Assign moderators to boards.


• Allow certain membergroups to access a board, including guests only.


• Configure permissions for each membergroup on the board level.


• Ability to indicate new posts to child boards but nothing new in parent.

Member Registration

• Require registration before forum entrance.


• Require a user to agree to terms before they register.


• Disable member registration completely (allowing only moderators to register people).


• Require email authentication by sending an authentication link.


• Require a moderator to approve registration.


• Register new members from the admin center.


• Member Navigation and Authentication


• Several security checks during navigation.


• Password reminder option, by email with confirmation. (doesn't automatically reset your password.)


• Both cookie and session based authentication (works without cookies.)


• Cookies can be set local to a path, global to all subdomains, or normally.


• Adjustable expiration time for authentication cookies.


• Member Tracking and Tracing


• Sortable and searchable public memberlist (accessible by a permission.)


• Powerful sortable and searchable admin memberlist.


• Show all (error) messages and IPs made by a member. (track user)


• Show all (error) messages from an IP address or range. (track IP)


• See who's doing what (accessible by permission.)

Statistics

• Several board statistics (accessible by permission.)


• Tracking of member's online time in seconds.


• Tracking of topics, messages, new members, and hits per day.


• Individual member statistics accessible from their profile.


• News and Announcements


• Ability to create announcement boards (members receive a notification of topics automatically.)


• Member option to disable receiving announcements.


• Email or private message your members by membergroup.


• Show a news ticker or news fader.


• Communication


• Ability to choose sendmail or SMTP (with or without authentication.)


• Ability to send a topic to a friend.


• Ability to view a "printer friendly" version of topics.

Membergroups

• Create membergroups to group members on permissions, access rights, and/or appearance.


• Assign several membergroups to a single member, with one membergroup as the primary group.


• Define membergroups that are auto-assigned based on the amount of posts a user has.


• Determine the maximum number of personal messages a membergroup is allowed to have by group.


• Assign graphical symbol(s) to a membergroup - by primary group.


• Determine which membergroups are allowed to access a board.

Banning

• Ban members based on their username, email address, IP address or hostname.


• Support of wildcards for email address, IP address, and hostname.


• Include a ban reason (viewable for the banned user).


• Include a ban note (only viewable by the admins).


• Chose between full ban, 'no post' ban, or registration ban.


• Include an expiration time for bans.

Changes in version 2.0b3:

• Database abstraction including support for PostgreSQL and SQLite


• Post and attachment moderation - setup through board permissions.


• Additional group management features such as group moderators and joinable and requestable groups


• Comprehensive user warning system.


• Paid subscriptions to allow people to make a payment with PayPal to get additional group access


• Personal message labeling system and new viewing options


• OpenID support - to enable users to login and register with their OpenID account


• Custom profile fields to enable admins to setup new profile fields in addition to the default


• WYSWIYG editor, to improve the user posting experience


• Ignore boards and ignore user functions - so users only see what they want to see


• Scheduled events and mail queuing systems to add additional functionality to the forum


• Admin and user logs to track who makes what changes to a user's profile


• A moderation center to bring together all moderation functionality into one place for all people with moderation abilities