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v8.4 · est. 2003
[root > bbs > ichigo] session.open()
No. 1 kuro_admin 2003/04/12 (Sat) 09:14:33 ID:v8X19kQ2

ichigobbs.net — the open bbs for builders, modders & forum culture since 2003. threads that don't expire.

A self-hostable, free-core bulletin board with twenty-one years of uptime behind it. Drop the engine on any $5/mo VPS, fork the plugin registry, and run a community your members will still be posting to in 2046.

Launch Your Forum Free → Or migrate in <17 min
  • corefree, GPLv2
  • stackPHP 8.2 / MariaDB / nginx
  • track record21 yrs continuous
  • v8.4released Q2 2025
02/By the numbers, since spring 2003
  1. installs
    38,400+
    active self-hosted communities across 92 countries
  2. age
    21yrs
    continuous maintenance — v8.4 shipped Q2 2025
  3. plugins
    1,860+
    community-vetted extensions in the public registry
  4. first byte
    184ms
    median on a $6/mo Hetzner VPS, per 2024 benchmarks
Founded 2003 by kuro_admin as a fork of the JD-Wiki BBS engine. Cited as a Top 5 self-hosted forum platform by Opensource.com (2022, 2024). Show HN ×3 — 2009, 2016, 2022.
03/

What you get when you install the core

The engine is free. Everything below ships in the box — the rest is opt-in.

01

Self-host core, no per-seat fees

Drop the tarball on any $5/mo VPS. Unlimited members, unlimited threads, unlimited storage. No telemetry pings, no seat tax, no “contact sales” button.

02

One-click migration toolkit

Imports from vBulletin, phpBB, XenForo, MyBB, and Discourse — average run finishes in under 17 minutes, including attachments and private message archives.

03

1,860+ community-vetted plugins

Every extension in the registry is signed and peer-reviewed by a maintainer. Broken plugins get pulled, not deprecated silently. Browse the registry →

04

ActivityPub federation, built in

Posts, replies, and reactions bridge to the Mastodon fediverse without third-party plugins. First shipped in v8.0 (2023), now stable across 1,200+ federated instances.

05

Performance budget, audited yearly

184 ms median first byte on reference hardware. Independent WebPageTest community benchmarks republished every spring since 2018.

06

Community governance, not a roadmap

14-person core team, 240+ verified GitHub contributors, public RFC process. Listed on the Internet Archive’s community-software preservation list since 2019.

04/How a thread looks in IchigoBBS 8.4

A release-note screenshot, not a polished mockup. Numbers, handles, timestamps, quoted reply, body — the BBS shape you remember.

talk.ichigobbs.net / b / general / 41827
/b/general/ re: anyone still running their own mail server in 2025
  1. 41821kuro_adminOP2025/04/09 (Wed) 21:08:14

    been running postfix + dovecot on the same box as ichigobbs for 9 years. two things broke last month, both self-inflicted. AMA about the boring parts.

  2. 41823fern_cpu2025/04/09 (Wed) 21:14:02

    > 41821 — AMA about the boring parts
    how do you handle greylisting without nuking legit signups from throwaway inboxes?

  3. 41827kuro_adminOP2025/04/09 (Wed) 21:21:47

    > 41823 — greylisting without nuking signups
    two lists. one is greylist-strict, one is greylist-soft. anything matching a known mail provider goes straight to soft. signup flow only requires soft-pass.

[email protected] type your reply here… [post ↵]
05/

Migrating from legacy forum software shouldn’t take a weekend

Most admins we talk to have been meaning to leave phpBB or vBulletin for about six years. The reason they haven’t isn’t loyalty — it’s the dread of a migration script that stalls at 47% and leaves the user table half-imported. We’ve been chewing on that problem since 2009.

IchigoBBS ships a single importer that handles vBulletin, phpBB, XenForo, MyBB, and Discourse exports. You point it at your old database, pick which subforums to bring across, and go make coffee. The reported average migration — including attachments, private messages, and ban lists — finishes in under 17 minutes. Our public mirror of forum-modding tutorials at the Internet Archive has 4,200+ archived threads on the subject, mostly solved problems.

If you’re stuck, open a ticket on the community forum. A maintainer from the 14-person core team (or one of the 240+ verified contributors) will usually reply same day, in plain language, with a patch if it needs one. Read the migration guide →

06/

Questions admins ask before switching

Q. Is the core actually free, or is it freemium-with-asterisks?
A. The core engine is GPLv2, no asterisks. Download it, fork it, sell hosting around it. The hosted tier (managed installs, backups, SSO) is a paid add-on — not a paywall on the software itself.
Q. What does it actually cost to run on my own VPS?
A. Most admins land on a $5–$6/mo Hetzner or DigitalOcean box for forums under 50k daily posts. The reference benchmark (184 ms first byte) was on exactly that. See the sizing guide →
Q. Will my forum federate to Mastodon without a plugin?
A. Yes — built-in since v8.0 (2023). Posts, replies, and reactions bridge to the fediverse out of the box. About 1,200 federated instances currently talk to IchigoBBS forums.
Q. Are the 1,860+ plugins actually safe to install?
A. Every plugin in the registry is signed and reviewed by a named maintainer. Broken or abandoned plugins are pulled from the index, not left to rot. You can also self-host the registry and pin it to your own curated list.
Q. Will this still exist in ten years?
A. We’ve been around since 2003 — we’re aware of the bus factor. The 14-person core team is geographically distributed (Japan, Germany, Canada, USA), the codebase is fully mirrored at the Internet Archive, and governance is documented in the public RFC repo. Read the charter →

Ready to start a forum, or rescue an old one?

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