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Flatbb icon

Flatbb

A flat, lightweight open-source forum in plain PHP that installs by unzipping a folder, with SQLite or MySQL and a plugin marketplace.

Home page: categories and tags on the left, flat topic list in the middle, statistics on the right

Cost / License

  • Free
  • Open Source (MIT)

Application type

Platforms

  • Self-Hosted
  • PHP
Plugin marketplace with one-click installs
Plugin developer docs: the whole plugin API in one page for AI assistants
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Mobile layout
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Flatbb information

  • Developed by

    Flatbb

  • Licensing

    Open Source (MIT) and Free product.

  • Written in

  • Alternatives

    8 alternatives listed

  • Badge

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  • Supported Languages

    • English
    • German
    • French
    • Spanish
    • Portuguese
    • Italian
    • Dutch

AlternativeTo Categories

Development, Social & Communications

GitHub repository

  •  0 Stars
  •  0 Forks
  •  0 Open Issues
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Flatbb was added to AlternativeTo by nwnuyhs on and this page was last updated .
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What is Flatbb?

Flatbb is a flat, lightweight forum written in plain PHP 8 with no framework, no Composer and no build step. Download the zip, unzip it into a web folder, open the URL, and a short installer sets up SQLite or MySQL and the admin account. It runs on the cheapest shared hosting and needs nothing but PHP.

Features: categories, tags, flat topics with replies, markdown with mentions and attachments, notifications, full-text search, dark mode, a three-column layout that collapses to one column on phones, user groups and permissions, an admin panel for users, categories, layout blocks and plugins, one-click in-place upgrades, and language packs for English, German, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Italian and Dutch.

Everything beyond the core is a plugin. A plugin is one folder with one manifest and can add routes, hooks, settings, admin pages, scheduled jobs and its own database tables; it is installed by uploading a zip in the admin panel or in one click from the official marketplace. The whole plugin API is documented in a single text file so that AI coding assistants (Claude Code, Codex, Cursor) can write plugins from a description.

Flatbb is free and open source under the MIT license.

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