Vanilla is an open-source, standards-compliant, multi-lingual, fully extensible discussion forum for the web. Anyone who has web-space that meets the requirements can download and use Vanilla for free!

In Vanilla you can quickly and easily see which discussions you haven’t read, and how many new comments are in each discussion. You can run advanced searches through discussion topics, comments, and users. You can change the way Vanilla operates using per-user preferences. Finally, you have a very customizable account profile where you can provide pictures of yourself and add as much information about yourself as you like.

Vanilla has built-in spam control, an autonomous user & role management system, and affords administrators a great deal of flexibility and ease-of-use. As an administrator you can completely change the layout, style, language, and all application settings through an intuitive and easy to navigate settings tab. Adding and organizing roles, categories, languages, and add-ons is a breeze. Simple or advanced searches that yield useful results are invaluable in day-to-day administration.

Vanilla is all about add-ons. We’ve spent many, many months developing a new system whereby developers can create add-ons for Vanilla that allow you to do just about anything with your forum. Want to turn your Vanilla into a bug tracking system? Want to tag discussions instead of categorizing them? Maybe you just want a fancy highlighting effect when new messages are posted. Your imagination is the limit.