Plugins are available to embed Vanilla Forums in WordPress (please see disclosure at the end of this post), Blogger, Tumblr, Drupal, and Squarespace sites. The WordPress plugin can automatically log WP users into Vanilla without having to sign in again, or to create a separate account. Vanilla also has tools available to import forum content from phpBB and vBulletin.

The cost of the hosted version of Vanilla Forums ranges from a free, advertising-supported plan, to a “premium” plan with unlimited users and 15 GB of storage, costing $199 per month. If you wish to host a forum on your own server, an open-source version is available, for which there are a large number of add-ons available to customize the forum.

Disclosure: Automattic, the maker of WordPress.com, is backed by True Ventures, a venture capital firm that is an investor in the parent company of this blog, Giga Omni Media. Om Malik, founder of Giga Omni Media, is also a venture partner at True.

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In a way, the name isn’t entirely fair. Forums created through the service have plenty of features, including:

• The ability to control how public the forum is.
• The ability to assign users to several different roles. Each role can be assigned a different level of access, and can even be allowed to invite a certain number of others to join the forum if desired.
• Email notifications of posting activity.
• The ability for users to participate in private conversations.
• Basic spam filtering, through limiting the number of posts and length of comments.
• User profiles and avatars.
• Search capability.
• A customizable URL, like your_name.vanillaforums.com.

What the hosted version of Vanilla doesn’t have, at least right now (the current release is 1.1.8, but version 2 is in beta).

• Themes. If you want a look other than the standard blue-and-white design, you’ll need to host the package yourself (see below).
• Documentation. The hosted version has zero help, although the service does use tool tips and panes with helpful hints like “Here’s some stuff you might want to do.” But I found using the site to be pretty simple.
• Clarity on pricing and features. I’m not sure what storage and activity limitations may be placed on the free hosted version. The web site does mention a premium service, although I couldn’t find anywhere that lists features and prices.

The Vanilla open-source software package for forums is also available, if you want to host a forum yourself. It’s set up so that you can add CSS-based themes, or create them yourself. There is, by the way, considerable documentation for this version, including a wiki and (guess what?) a discussion forum.

All in all, Vanilla Forums is a surprisingly robust alternative to other discussion forum options, and may appeal to those who don’t want to deal with hosting a discussion forum, or who don’t want the hassles of managing something like phpBB.

Have you used Vanilla Forums? What do you use for discussion forums?

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