MyBB
Free, extensible forum software package.
Description from awesome-selfhosted (CC BY-SA 3.0)
Still maintained? Yes: 66 commits in the last 90 days, latest release mybb_1841 (Sep 2026).
Comparisons in Communication - Social Networks and Forums: Twitter alternatives, Facebook Groups alternatives, Reddit alternatives, Disqus alternatives.
At a glance
MyBB quick facts
- Health score
- 82/100 GOOD
- Stars
- 1,246
- Last commit
- 4 days ago (Oct 2026)
- Latest release
- mybb_1841, Sep 2026
- Licence
- LGPL-3.0
Top alternatives to MyBB
In its own words
The project's README opens: "MyBB is a free and open source forum software written in PHP with support for MySQL/MariaDB/PostgreSQL/SQLite, licensed under GNU LGPL v3."
Why it ranks here
Health score explained
MyBB scores 82/100, #19 of 40 in Communication - Social Networks and Forums: 66 commits in the last 90 days earn 35.0 of 35 points, the latest release (mybb_1841, 1 month ago) earns 25.0 of 25, 1,246 stars add 12.4 of 20, an active, unarchived repository keeps 10 and no advertised Docker image leaves the final 10 unclaimed. That places it in the good band (70 and above). The biggest shortfall is Docker support, worth 10.0 more points.
Recomputed nightly from the GitHub API. How the score is calculated.
- Commit activity 35.0 / 35
66 commits in 90 days (30+ scores full marks)
- Release recency 25.0 / 25
mybb_1841 released 1 month ago
- Stars 12.4 / 20
1.2k stars on GitHub (logarithmic)
- Not archived 10.0 / 10
Repository is active
- Docker support biggest shortfall 0.0 / 10
No Docker support advertised
Commit activity
- 66
- Last 90 days
- 405
- Last 12 months
- 4 days ago
- Last push
Ranked #19 of 40 tools in Communication - Social Networks and Forums by health , between Friendica (#18) and Simple Machines Forum (#20) .
Details
| Licence | LGPL-3.0 |
| Platforms | PHP |
| Latest release | mybb_1841 · 1 month ago |
| Stars | 1,246 |
| Open issues | 251 |
| Docker | Not advertised |
| Repository | mybb/mybb ↗ |
MyBB vs its top 5 alternatives
Active tools that share a category with MyBB (Communication - Social Networks and Forums), scored on the same five terms.
| Tool | Health | Stars | Licence | Last commit |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Discourse | 99 | 48k | GPL-2.0 | today |
| NodeBB | 97 | 15k | GPL-3.0 | yesterday |
| MyBB (this tool) | 82 | 1.2k | LGPL-3.0 | 4 days ago |
| Simple Machines Forum | 82 | 755 | BSD-3-Clause | yesterday |
| Misago | 80 | 2.8k | GPL-2.0 | yesterday |
| phpBB | 58 | 2.1k | GPL-2.0 | yesterday |
MyBB: common questions
Is MyBB still maintained?
MyBB had 66 commits in the last 90 days and its last push was 4 days ago; the latest tagged release, mybb_1841, is from 1 month ago. Repoly recomputes this nightly.