How can you tell if an online forum is made with xenForo, phpbb or vbulletin?

[thewallfacers]

I see a lot of different forums, some look pretty decent, just wondering, can you tell by just looking at the forum style or source code what software a forum uses? If so, what do you look for?

 

[Niro]

Login Page

 

[thewallfacers]

oh interesting, can you tell which software this forum: https://forum.grasscity.com/ uses? The login doesn't feel like basic xenforo, phpbb

 

[Case]

oh interesting, can you tell which software this forum: https://forum.grasscity.com/ uses? The login doesn't feel like basic xenforo, phpbb

xenForo

 

[thewallfacers]

woah, can you tell though?

 

[Case]

woah, can you tell though?

View the source code of the page.

 

[JonathanW]

I see a lot of different forums, some look pretty decent, just wondering, can you tell by just looking at the forum style or source code what software a forum uses? If so, what do you look for?

View the source code of the page.

Yeah, they're all going to have distinctive markers. Anyone who works with them frequently can tell at a glance.

 

[thewallfacers]

Yeah, they're all going to have distinctive markers. Anyone who works with them frequently can tell at a glance.

I just checked the sourcecode of forum.grasscity.com and saw its xenforo, thanks!

what about when you stuff like https://www.ultimate-guitar.com/forum/?

What are these distinctive markers you look for? thanks

 

[HWS]

Just use https://builtwith.com to find out.

 

[thewallfacers]

Just use https://builtwith.com to find out.

wow, this is AWESOME man! thanks!

when i ran https://www.ultimate-guitar.com/forum/, it did not say there is any "Content Management Systems" (no xenforo, phpbb, vbulletin etc) instead it just showed HTML, Javascript and a bunch of other things. Does that mean, the forum was built from scratch by developers via straight up coding instead of using software?

 

[RobParker]

Pretty sure that's vbulletin

 

[thewallfacers]

Pretty sure that's vbulletin

okay this is getting really confusing, it didn't say anything on https://builtwith.com

Please teach me, how did you know it was vbulletin!

 

[RobParker]

It looks like VB
It has showthread.php, forumdisplay.php, etc which are all VB files

There are also references to them using VB if you search their forum.

 

[thewallfacers]

It looks like VB
It has showthread.php, forumdisplay.php, etc which are all VB files

There are also references to them using VB if you search their forum.

this is just pure gold man

so how would you identify phpbb? What would it say?

 

[RobParker]

I'm not as familiar with phpbb so someone else can probably answer that.

 

[thewallfacers]

I'm not as familiar with phpbb so someone else can probably answer that.

anyone know with what software this site is made with?: https://boardgamegeek.com/forums/region/1/boardgamegeek

Doesnt look like xenforo, vbulletin, nor phpbb

 

[RobParker]

It's their own software.

 

[Tuncay1551]

You can tell by design.
Each of them have different design.

 

[CFMack]

anyone know with what software this site is made with?: https://boardgamegeek.com/forums/region/1/boardgamegeek

Wow. That's hard on the eyes.

 

[Martok]

anyone know with what software this site is made with?: https://boardgamegeek.com/forums/region/1/boardgamegeek

Doesnt look like xenforo, vbulletin, nor phpbb

I believe BGG have created it themselves.

Wow. That's hard on the eyes.

Indeed, it's not the best looking site by any means (it's one I regularly use). It's a huge site with a wealth of information and the issue they have is trying to bring it all up-to-date. This is being done in stages it seems, as you can see on some pages that the design is different, for example on the games pages such as this https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/185343/anachrony the header and menu is different from what's on the home page https://boardgamegeek.com/. The forums though are quite dated when compared to the likes of XenForo.