:: Index of all *channel software

Index of *channel software.

Hi. This is a list of all *channel software that is both publicly available, and in English. This list was made to quench all the "What chan software should I use?" threads posted everywhere.

The name of each piece of software in the "Software" collum is a link, clicking it brings you to an example installation of that particular software. A sandbox for you to play around in so you can see what posting would be like for your users if you were to use that particular software. Most of these sandboxes are operated by the developers of that software, though not all developers of the various sofwares have bothered to set up a demo board or sandbox, so I made my own demo installations on this server instead. You'll know witch ones are mine because the board will have my name in it.

The links in the "Development Status" collum brings you to the developers page for that software. There you can download it and learn how to install/configure it.

RULE FOR ALL SANDBOXES: No illegal images or links. Obviously.

Software	Type of Channel	Language	What it's got	Development status	My Notes (these are my personal judgements, take them as you will.)
TablecatBBS flavor 1 flavor 2	Textboard	Perl	Very bare-bones. Nothing wrong with it. Very stable. BBcode. Fast. No database required! Single board install. Easy install. Comes in two looks/flavors.	Closed.	Very minimal. Good if your are looking for something low-impact on your server. Looks nice, runs smoth and fast.
REchan	Textboard	PHP	Multiple board installs, uses BBcode for markup, simple install, no admin interface. (bad) No database required! (good) Unique css.	Closed.	Kind of sucky. It has no admin interface so the way you delete threads is this: when you see a thread that you need to delete, you have to login to your FTP every time because it stores its threads as plain flat files like Kareha does, so to delete a thread, you have to delete the file itself via FTP. Yeah, there's no moderation.
Shiichan	Textboard	PHP	It's okay-but even it's author says to use Kareha instead. Some markup, but is unlike most markup you will find in other software.	Closed.	If what you want is simply a textboard channel, use this. Though it bugs me that its markup is different from any other chan software as it could confuse users. Kareha is better.
Kareha	Textboard or imageboard	Perl	Like Shiichan but is much more complete and can also be configured to run as image/file board too, so it could be an imageboard if you want. Anti-spam tool included. Easy configuration/install. No database required! Stable. Multiple CSS. Best of all the the textboard software. Pretty sweet as a imageboard too.	Closed.	A lot of love was put into this. But it bugs me that it is made to allow image posting (and general files) like a imageboard channel while it is laid out in the form of a textboard channel. This is just my opinion but I think textboard channels should be textboard channels and imageboard channels should be imageboard channels. This crossover makes things look jumbled and confusing. However, this can be tottaly averted with the CSS that comes with it. It has CSS to make it look like an image board for when you put it in image mode, and it has CSS to make it look like a text board for when you put it in text mode. Kareha is my personal favorite.
Fatubaly	Imageboard	PHP	Not much in terms of extras but it does what its supposed to and does it well. Very barebones. Very basic. Works well.	Obsolete.	Very old. I think it was the first of the English chan software. Good if you want something with very low impact on your server. But no real reason to use this when other stuff is around.
Wakaba	Imageboard	Perl	Can make Oekaki boards. Complicated configuration & setup. A bug or two.	Closed.	Very good. Pretty complete. Fairly stable once you get past the setup. I don't personally like it but that's me.
Tinyboard	Imageboard	PHP	Clean looking. Fast. Light-weight. Secure. Highly configurable. Great moderation tools. Private messages can be sent between mods an admins.	Ongoing.	Creates very clean looking pages. The texts fields for creating/submitting threads is smaller and takes up less space on the page than other software. Free of exploits. You can configure & tweak just about everything in it.
Orphereus	Imageboard	Python	I can't install this software here and it seems that nobody could unless you host it yourself because you have to install special packages in addition to Python on your system to run it. Fuck it.	??????	Nobody I know uses this software, and the devs link to a demo board from their site but nothing is there. It's like a big secret or something.
PyIB	Imageboard	Python	Is made by the same person who made TinyIB but re-wrote the exact same thing in Python, but now with less features...and broken as fuck.	Closed.	Don't use it. It's too broken for use atm. Use TinyIB instead. It's the same exact script but written in PHP and by the same guy. As you can see by the install hosted here, it does not work.
Kotoba	Imageboard	PHP		Closed.
TinyIB	Imageboard	PHP	Very fast. Simple and easy setup. Runs well and is stable. Nice and easy moderation/admin interface.	Closed.	Very good, I reccomend it.
Ochan	Imageboard	JAVA		Closed.	Looks real bad. Not pretty. I don't know of any what you're let to install it other than from command line, so I can't have a demo here.
Wakarimasen	Imageboard	Python		Closed.
Kakaha	Imageboard	PHP	Lightwieght, has capcha, no need for "noko" command, uses buton instead.	Closed.
Kusaba X	Imageboard and textboard	PHP	Insecure. Great admin interface. Frames. News blotter and homepage. Can create multiple boards. Can create both text and image boards. Watched threads. Embeded video posting. File uploads. Can make Oekaki boards. Has some security holes people can use to fuck up the whole board.	Ongoing.	Used for many, many, chans. Gives you and your posters lots of tools to work with that other software does not. Prefect for making a chan with lots of boards. With lots of other software, you install and you get one board. With this you install and then use the admin interface to create what boards you want. HOWEVER: There ARE security holes which are known and exploitable. One of which is one boards that use IDs. One can run a script on the IDs that will eventually return the posters IP adress, as the IDs are genreated from the posters IP.
AnonSaba	Imageboard and textboard	PHP	It's a fork of Kusaba X which is exactly like Kusaba X except for a few bug fixes and new features like being able to upload images to the board via web URLs.	Ongoing.	^That.
Rateitstar	Imageboard	PHP	Does what basic imageboard software would do but it also has a five star rating system all posters can use to rate each others posts and images.	Ongoing.	Never before has a post rating system been coded into any chan software before, as far as I know anyway. It's going to be interesting to see what the psychological effect of this added element will be like on a community of channers.
PHPchan	Imageboard	PHP	Does what basic imageboard software always does but was made for one goal, to rip off 4chan. All of the HTML and CSS in this software is made to look, run, and feel exactly like 4chan.	Ongoing.	The coder of this met his had exceeded his goal. It even has 4chans ads on it. Not needed, but he did it anyway. Go him.
ATBBS	BBS	PHP	Average moderation tools. Content Management system. No names/tripcodes.	Ongoing.	Very, very minimal. Has a some bugs. No real reason to use it when TinyBBS is around.
TinyBBS	Mobile/BBS	PHP	Good moderation tools. Content management system. News bulletins. Folks-online. Does have names/tripcodes.	Closed.	Pretty good. Fast. Has a good "mobile mode" for posting from mobile devices. Unlike its grandfather, ATBBS, it gives posters the use of names-tripcodes, a "notepad," and lets them choose their own CSS.
MiniBBS	Mobile/BBS	PHP	An upgrade and continuation of TinyBBS after it closed. New features like UID filtering, hiding of tripcodes, bump limit, thread pruning.	Ongoing.	I have yet to play with it myself, but I will.

If you have written your own *chan software, know of some that is not on this list, would like me to update an outdated link, want to contribute information that you think should be in one of the collums, correct something I wrote wrong, or wish to send me a picture of your penis, just email me at n.343.jp@live.com.