= Django Forum Apps Comparison =

Yvan Seth's blog entry [http://yvan.seth.id.au/Entries/Technology/Code/Django_Forum_Software.html Django Forum Software] from December 2007 lists a few well-known discussion forum applications for Django. This page continues on the same tracks and tries to gather a comparison of essential features in those applications.

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{{{
#!html
<table class="listing">
  <caption>Features currently evaluated</caption>
  <thead>
    <tr>
      <td>Feature</td>
      <td>Description</td>
    </tr>
  </thead>
  <tbody>
    <tr>
      <td>demo</td>
      <td>
	If the application has a public demo site, a link and
	login/password are given.
      </td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td>guest-post</td>
      <td>Visitors can post messages without registration.</td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td>notify</td>
      <td>
	An administrator can be notified by E-mail and/or SMS about
	new messages. Note that this feature should be trivial to add
        to most apps with signals and external code only.
      </td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td>pre-moderate</td>
      <td>
	It's possible to hide new messages until they are approved by
	an administrator.
      </td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td>post-moderate</td>
      <td>
	The app provides a user interface for removing messages.
      </td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td>comment</td>
      <td>
	Any Django model instance can have a message thread attached to it.
      </td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td>forum</td>
      <td>
	The app provides the concept of a forum inside which message
	threads are grouped.
      </td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td>title</td>
      <td>
	Individual messages can have their own titles.
      </td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td>modify</td>
      <td>
	Users can modify messages.
      </td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td>msg-history</td>
      <td>
	When message are modified, everyone can see the change history.
      </td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td>private</td>
      <td>
	Users can send private messages to other users.
      </td>
    </tr>
  </tbody>
</table>
}}}

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{{{
#!html
<table class="listing">
  <caption>Summary of major Django forum/discussion apps and their support for the above features</caption>
  <thead>
    <tr>
      <td>Application</td>
      <td>Author(s)</td>
      <td title="Link to demo with login/password">demo</td>
      <td title="Visitors can post without registering">guest-post</td>
      <td title="E-mail/SMS Notification / Thread Subscription">notify</td>
      <td title="Moderator can accept/reject messages before they are published">pre-moderate</td>
      <td title="User interface for removing messages">post-moderate</td>
      <td title="Attach threadns to any Django model instance">comment</td>
      <td title="Threads grouped in forums">forum</td>
      <td title="Titles for individual messages">title</td>
      <td title="Users can modify messages">modify</td>
      <td title="Message change history available to all">msg-history</td>
      <td title="Private messages to other users">private</td>
    </tr>
  </thead>
  <tbody>
    <tr>
      <td><a href="http://code.djangoproject.com/wiki/UsingFreeComment" 
             title="django.contrib.comments">contrib.comments</a></td>
      <td>Django authors</td>
      <td title="demo">?</td>
      <td title="guest-post">yes</td>
      <td title="notify">no?</td>
      <td title="pre-moderate">?</td>
      <td title="post-moderate">?</td>
      <td title="comment">?</td>
      <td title="forum">?</td>
      <td title="title">?</td>
      <td title="modify">?</td>
      <td title="msg-history">?</td>
      <td title="private">?</td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td><a href="http://code.google.com/p/django-comment-utils/" 
             title="django.contrib.comments with django-comment-utils">comment-utils</a></td>
      <td>James Bennett</td>
      <td title="demo">?</td>
      <td title="guest-post">?</td>
      <td title="notify">?</td>
      <td title="pre-moderate">?</td>
      <td title="post-moderate">?</td>
      <td title="comment">?</td>
      <td title="forum">?</td>
      <td title="title">?</td>
      <td title="modify">?</td>
      <td title="msg-history">?</td>
      <td title="private">?</td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td><a href="http://code.google.com/p/django-threadedcomments"
             title="django-threadedcomments">django-threadedcomments</a></td>
      <td>Eric Florenzano</td>
      <td title="demo"><a href="http://www.eflorenzano.com/threadexample/blog/">Here</a></td>
      <td title="guest-post">yes</td>
      <td title="notify">yes</td>
      <td title="pre-moderate">yes</td>
      <td title="post-moderate">yes</td>
      <td title="comment">yes</td>
      <td title="forum">no</td>
      <td title="title">no</td>
      <td title="modify">yes</td>
      <td title="msg-history">no</td>
      <td title="private">no</td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td><a href="http://code.google.com/p/django-forum/" 
             title="Simple Django Forum Component">django-forum</a></td>
      <td>Ross Poulton</td>
      <td title="demo">?</td>
      <td title="guest-post">no</td>
      <td title="notify"><a href="http://code.google.com/p/django-forum/issues/detail?id=8">patch</a></td>
      <td title="pre-moderate">no</td>
      <td title="post-moderate">yes <span title="in Django admin">*</span></td>
      <td title="comment">no</td>
      <td title="forum">yes</td>
      <td title="title">no</td>
      <td title="modify">?</td>
      <td title="msg-history">?</td>
      <td title="private">?</td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td><a href="http://code.google.com/p/counterpoint"
             title="forum written with django">counterpoint</a></td>
      <td>Colin Grady</td>
      <td title="demo">?</td>
      <td title="guest-post">no</td>
      <td title="notify">no</td>
      <td title="pre-moderate">no</td>
      <td title="post-moderate">?</td>
      <td title="comment">?</td>
      <td title="forum">?</td>
      <td title="title">?</td>
      <td title="modify">?</td>
      <td title="msg-history">?</td>
      <td title="private">?</td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td><a href="http://www.jonathanbuchanan.plus.com/repos/forum"
             title="Jonathan's Django Forum">Django Forum</a></td>
      <td>Jonathan Buchanan</td>
      <td title="demo">
        <a href="http://incremental.homedns.org:81/">guest/guest</a>
      </td>
      <td title="guest-post">no</td>
      <td title="notify">no</td>
      <td title="pre-moderate">no</td>
      <td title="post-moderate">yes</td>
      <td title="comment">no</td>
      <td title="forum">yes</td>
      <td title="title">no</td>
      <td title="modify">?</td>
      <td title="msg-history">?</td>
      <td title="private">?</td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td><a href="http://code.google.com/p/snapboard"
             title="S(imple), N(imble), A(ttractive), P(ython) board">snapboard</a></td>
      <td>Bo Shi, JW Mayfield</td>
      <td title="demo">?</td>
      <td title="guest-post">no</td>
      <td title="notify">no</td>
      <td title="pre-moderate">no</td>
      <td title="post-moderate">yes</td>
      <td title="comment">no</td>
      <td title="forum">yes <span title="categories">*</span></td>
      <td title="title">no</td>
      <td title="modify">yes</td>
      <td title="msg-history">yes</td>
      <td title="private">yes</td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td><a href="http://code.google.com/p/diamanda"
             title="Diamanda “MyghtyBoard” FORUM">MyghtyBoard</a></td>
      <td>Piotr Malinski</td>
      <td title="demo"><a href="http://www.rkblog.rk.edu.pl">Forum in use</a></td>
      <td title="guest-post">yes <span title="configurable">*</span></td>
      <td title="notify">yes 
        <span title="mail_admins is used / configurable">*</span>
      </td>
      <td title="pre-moderate">no</td>
      <td title="post-moderate">yes</td>
      <td title="comment">not yet</td>
      <td title="forum">yes</td>
      <td title="title">no</td>
      <td title="modify">?</td>
      <td title="msg-history">?</td>
      <td title="private">?</td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td><a href="http://sct.sphene.net/"
             title="Sphene Community Tools">Sphene</a></td>
      <td>Herbert Poul</td>
      <td title="demo">
        <a href="http://sct.sphene.net/board/show/14/">anonymous</a>
      </td>
      <td title="guest-post">
	yes
	<span title="can be configured (if captchas are enabled, anonymous users have to answer them)">*</span>
      </td>
      <td title="notify: only registered users">reg *</td>
      <td title="pre-moderate">
	no
	<span title="messages can be set to be hidden from threads and posts views, but an admin UI is missing. Code changes required to make new posts hidden">*</span>
      </td>
      <td title="post-moderate">yes 
        <span title="messages can be 'annotated' – either hiding the original content or adding to it">*</span>
      </td>
      <td title="comment">no</td>
      <td title="forum">yes</td>
      <td title="title">yes</td>
      <td title="modify">?</td>
      <td title="msg-history">?</td>
      <td title="private">?</td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td><a href="http://zyons.com/"
             title="Zyons Community Applications">Zyons</a></td>
      <td>Ian Holsman?</td>
      <td title="demo">?</td>
      <td title="guest-post">?</td>
      <td title="notify">?</td>
      <td title="pre-moderate">?</td>
      <td title="post-moderate">?</td>
      <td title="comment">?</td>
      <td title="forum">?</td>
      <td title="title">?</td>
      <td title="modify">?</td>
      <td title="msg-history">?</td>
      <td title="private">?</td>
    </tr>
  </tbody>
  <tfoot>
    <tr>
      <td colspan="6">
        Column headings and * symbols reveal verbose descriptions when the mouse pointer hovers over them.
      </td>
  </tfoot>
</table>
}}}

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This page was originally created by [http://djangopeople.net/akaihola/ akaihola]. There's a [http://groups.google.com/group/django-users/browse_thread/thread/56a6b62aba0c8766 django-users thread] about this page. I'll update information posted on that thread to this page.

Most of my conclusions about supported features are based on reading the code, not on actually testing the apps. Please make corrections in case I missed something.

=== Comments ===
[http://djangopeople.net/insin Jonathan Buchanan]: django-discussion is not actively maintained or developed at this time (parts of it were extracted into [http://code.google.com/p/django-mptt/ Django MPTT]) – [http://code.google.com/p/django-threadedcomments django-threadedcomments] looks like a more complete and feature-rich implementation of the type of functionality it provided, so I've removed discussion and put threadedcomments in its place.

=== To do ===
Ideas for making this page better:
 * add column for supported Django versions/revisions/branches