Why are all open-source forums written in PHP?
Show HN: Natika – Simple PHP Forum for Developers
21–27 of 27 posts
Re: Show HN: Natika – Simple PHP Forum for Developers
#22The design seems very much like NodeBB.
Re: Show HN: Natika – Simple PHP Forum for Developers
#23Why are all open-source forums written in PHP?
I would guess one of the reasons to be the fact that there are a myriad of (money-free) hosting providers out there offering plain drag&drop file uploading with PHP support (often paired with a mysql database access). This makes PHP software extremely easy to install.
Not that it would be even possible to run non-PHP server side scripts with majority of said providers...
Re: Show HN: Natika – Simple PHP Forum for Developers
#24Why are all open-source forums written in PHP?
I would guess one of the reasons to be the fact that there are a myriad of (money-free) hosting providers out there offering plain drag&drop file uploading with PHP support (often paired with a mysql database access). This makes PHP software extremely easy to install. Not that it would be even possible to run non-PHP server side scripts with majority of said providers...
Indeed. I follow the Wekan Kanban board project which is Meteor-based, and it seems like it's every couple weeks someone asks "how do I install this with cPanel" (which generally means, shared hosting with PHP/MySQL). It's kinda sad to explain to them that their existing hosting probably isn't going to let them run Meteor.
Re: Show HN: Natika – Simple PHP Forum for Developers
#25Why are all open-source forums written in PHP?
Re: Show HN: Natika – Simple PHP Forum for Developers
#26The design seems decent enough (especially in the admin dashboard and post editor), but I'm not quite sure what the appeal of this software is.
I mean, it's a forum script. It seems like it does a decent enough job as a forum script. But the amount of competition is this market is enormous, and you're sort of competing with names that have hundreds of thousands of sites using them along with large developer communities and lots of styling options.
If I was a developer wanting a forum on its own, then I'd probably check out XenForo or IPB or Woltlab (paid) or MyBB or SMF or phpBB (free) before this, because I know I'd find more help and documentation online and be assured that development would continue for the foreseeable future.
If I wanted to integrate it with another script, I'd use a forum plugin for the script, like BBPress, or Kunena.
If I wanted a modern, 'hip', looking forum, it'd be something like NodeBB or (maybe) Discourse.
The forum market is so crowded at this point that you need a bit of a gimmick or hook here. Simple and aimed at developers seems like it could work, but I don't see much that suggests either in the screenshots or demo. Does it have a well designed and documented API for extending the script and what not? Does it let you remove or add features you don't/do want without writing code? Is it easy to integrate into an existing site?
That's the sort of thing you need to have if you want it to be a forum script for developers, and unfortunately, I don't see much evidence of that.
Re: Show HN: Natika – Simple PHP Forum for Developers
#27The design seems decent enough (especially in the admin dashboard and post editor), but I'm not quite sure what the appeal of this software is. I mean, it's a forum script. It seems like it does a decent enough job as a forum script. But the amount of competition is this market is enormous, and you're sort of competing with names that have hundreds of thousands of sites using them along with large developer communiti…
> I'd find more help and documentation online
PHP options are notorious for lack of API documentation for developers and inventing their own in-house frameworks despite solid ecosystem of ready solutions and libraries, or in case of solutions actually using those, burying them behind layers of their own boilerplate to make sure none of it is available to third-party developers (phpBB3 and XenForo, I am looking at you).
> development would continue for the foreseeable future
Like how XenForo's development froze for year and a half with zero word from its developers because of ongoing litigation, or SMF's foundation losing majority of contributors every few releases due to internal arguments with self-proclaimed project lead? Or Invision Power Board thats so busy churning out new features I remember having bugs in 3.1 that they didn't fix for 8 years and were actually moved over to next major?
> The forum market is so crowded at this point that you need a bit of a gimmick or hook here
As forum software dev I can tell you that there's massive sunction from developers for software that meets following criteria:
- powered by known frameworks and libraries - exposing as much API as possible from those frameworks and libraries - architectured to be maintainable despite heavy customizations (this means that if I use forum software based on eg. Symfony, I still should be able to use it as framework to build complete site around) - embrancing technologies and services from outside AMP stack (like search engines, build steps for frontend's assets)