Build a place where conversations grow, knowledge stays searchable and members have a reason to return.

Forovanta is free, self-hosted forum software that brings discussions, downloads, community chat, private messaging and publishing together in one platform. Whether you’re creating a hobby community, a software support forum or a home for creators, Forovanta gives you the tools to organize content and keep people connected.

Members can join discussions, share resources, follow topics, customize their profiles and connect privately. Administrators can shape the experience through permissions, moderation, themes, editable navigation and optional add-ons.

Built with PHP and MySQL, Forovanta runs on your own hosting, with your community’s content stored in your own database. Start with the features you need and expand as your community grows.

Forum Discussions

• Categories and nested subforums.
• Rich-text topic and reply editor.
• Images, attachments, links and formatted content.
• Topic polls.
• Likes and member mentions.
• Pinned, locked and featured topics.
• Topic views, reply counts and recent activity.
• Thread-owner identification.
• Colorful tags and tag browsing.
• Prefixes, suffixes and category-scoped labels.
• Watching, Tracking and Muted topic preferences.
• Topic and post bookmarks.
• Saved topic and reply drafts.
• Community search.
• Notification inbox.

Member Profiles and Communication

• Member registration, login and password recovery.
• Card-based member directory.
• Individual member profiles.
• Avatar uploads with cropping controls.
• Cover-image uploads and repositioning.
• Member signatures.
• Online-member displays.
• Private conversations with up to 20 participants.
• Unread message and notification indicators.
• Personal notification and email preferences.
• User-group colors, icons and banners.
• Trust levels.
• Automatic and staff-awarded badges.

Community Chat

• Homepage chatbox.
• Dedicated chat page.
• Multiple chat rooms.
• Chat rules and settings.
• Member mentions and alerts.
• Staff moderation tools.
• Chat bans and mutes.
• Word-filter enforcement.

Resource Manager

• Dedicated Downloads area.
• Resource categories.
• File uploads and optional external download links.
• Resource titles, descriptions and listing types.
• Icons, cover images and screenshots.
• Resource versions and download history.
• Download counts.
• Tags, prefixes and suffixes.
• Featured resource shelf.
• Member submission review.
• Configurable publishing and download permissions.
• Configurable file extensions and upload limits.
• Resource editing.
• Free and paid resources through supported payment flows.
• A General Downloads category on fresh installations.

Publishing and Community Support

• Blog posts and categories.
• Custom pages with a widget builder.
• Knowledge Base content.
• Support ticket management.
• Terms-of-service management.
• RSS feeds.

Moderation and Permissions

• Topic and post reporting.
• Staff moderation queues.
• Pin, lock, feature, move and delete topic controls.
• Hide, restore and delete post controls.
• Moderation audit records.
• Group-based category permissions.
• Submission approval controls.
• Configurable word filters.
• Censor, block, hold-for-review and flag actions.
• Word-filter testing.
• Spam controls and member restrictions.
• Screened-address management.

Appearance and Navigation

• Light and dark themes.
• Responsive layouts.
• Compact forum presentation.
• Configurable sidebars and layout preferences.
• Branding and logo settings.
• Theme management.
• Header and footer menu editors.
• Drag-and-drop menu ordering.
• Nested header links and footer sub-links.
• Menu visibility and new-tab controls.
• Dynamic navigation entries from enabled add-ons.
• Custom CSS, JavaScript and head markup.
• Configurable community statistics and activity panels.
• Progressive Web App settings.

Memberships and Payments

• Configurable membership plans.
• Plan prices and feature lists.
• Public membership comparison and upgrade pages.
• Membership assignment and status management.
• Central payment-provider settings.
• Stripe and PayPal integration for supported purchase flows.
• Order and payment records.

Administration and Maintenance

• Grouped administration screens.
• Editable maintenance page with administrator access preserved.
• Email and SMTP configuration.
• Mail queues and delivery controls.
• API-key management.
• Webhook integrations.
• Backup and restore tools.
• Optional S3-compatible offsite backups.
• Forum migration tools, including XenForo and Invision adapters.
• Source database table-prefix configuration.
• Browser-based installation.
• Database upgrade tools.
• Installed-version information.
• Release changelog.
• Diagnostic tools.

Account Security

• Passkey support.
• Two-factor authentication.
• Recovery tools.
• Password-reset workflows.
• Rate limiting.
• Permission-controlled administration and moderation.

Optional Add-ons Bundled with the Installer

These packages extend the forum when installed and enabled:

• Calendar — Free: Events, month and week views, RSVPs and submission review.
• Community Digest — Free: Configurable daily or weekly summaries of followed discussions.
• Clubs / Groups — Free: Dedicated communities with memberships, privacy controls and their own discussions.
• Media Gallery — Free: Albums, image uploads, linked media, comments and ratings.
• Marketplace — Premium: Software and digital-product listings, sales records and community revenue sharing.
• Creator Submissions — Premium: Creator dashboards, submission checklists and review feedback.

Marketplace and Creator Submissions are marked unreleased in this beta’s package manifests. Classifieds and Ads Pro are separate packages and are not included in this installer.

System Requirements

• PHP 8.2 or newer.
• PDO MySQL.
• MySQL or MariaDB.
• Additional PHP extensions and scheduled tasks as required for image processing, archives and mail delivery.

Forovanta is under active beta development. This feature list reflects the supplied installer’s implemented scope; some features still have reported issues or await live verification.