• Written in C# and ASP.NET Core (YAF.NET v4: .NET 11, YAF.NET v3: .NET Framework 4.8.1)
• Open source under the Apache License 2.0
• 100% free

• Microsoft SQL Server / SQL Server Express (2012 or later)
• MySQL / MariaDB
• PostgreSQL
• SQLite

• Unlimited boards, categories and forums
• User photo albums with automatic thumbnails
• Polls
• Real-time chat and private messages
• Real-time notifications
• Browser push notifications and installable as Progressive Web App (PWA)
• Timestamps are displayed in relative time
• Drag & drop upload of multiple images and other files
• Mark topic(s) or forum(s) as read
• WYSIWYG BBCode editor
• Multilingual support (also for RTL languages)
• Unicode (UTF-8) encoding
• RSS & Atom feeds for all pages (e.g. forums, topics, active discussions)
• Daily email digest
• Available as stand-alone application, DNN module and integrated into your own application (NuGet packages)
• Stable and secure
• Great performance, even for forums with a large number of users and posts
• Instant full text search
• 27 included Bootstrap Themes

• ASP.NET Identity
• User system with unlimited roles and permissions
• Rank system
• Role-specific colors
• Login with user name, display name or email and password
• Two-factor authentication (2FA)

• Forums can be hidden from users without access
• Access rights based on roles or individual user accounts
• Email verification
• Ban lists for IP addresses, email addresses, user names, countries and user agents
• Bad word replacement
• Rate limiting and security headers

• Block spam messages and their users with the spam words list
• Automatically reject bots during registration via StopForumSpam.com and BotScout.com

See Protect YAF.NET against spam bots.

• Unlimited number of categories, forums and sub forums per board
• Permissions can be set per role or for individual users

• Real-time topic and forum notifications
• Topic and forum email notifications
• Shows the users who are viewing the topic
• New post indicator
• Printer-friendly topic view
• Tools to manage topics - edit, delete, move, etc.
• Subscribe to a topic via Atom or RSS feed
• Topic timestamps are displayed in relative time, e.g. "4 minutes ago"
• The topic starter can mark a reply as the answer
• Show similar topic titles
• Topic tags

• Unicode emoji
• All common BBCodes
• Custom BBCodes
• WYSIWYG or standard (BBCode) editor for posts
• Attached images with modal image view
• Quick reply box
• Post preview
• Polls
• Post reporting - report posts to moderators
• User post count
• Thanks system
• Post timestamps are displayed in relative time, e.g. "4 minutes ago"
• Real-time notifications when a user is mentioned or quoted in a message
• Message drafts are saved automatically

• Member profile page
• Member list (with search)
• Optional theme selection per member
• Private messages
• Friends list
• Who's online
• Member signatures
• Favorite topics list
• User albums
• Reputation system with reputation bar
• User read tracking
• User info hover cards
• Block other users

• Avatar galleries defined by the admin
• Custom avatars - users can upload an image or specify a URL
• Default text avatar with a unique color and the initials of the user name

• Multiple attachments per message, allowed file types defined by the admin
• Attachments are stored on the file system
• Images can be attached directly to a message via drag & drop in the editor

• Time zone, editor, language and theme
• Auto-watch topics the user has posted in
• Email notifications for new posts in forums or topics
• Block users

• Edit user accounts
• Approve user accounts
• Anti-spam settings
• Board statistics
• Mass email to all users or a specific role
• Mass user import / export
• Database maintenance
• Run SQL queries
• Database backup: nightly zipped backups of the database, uploads and images to download (host admin, see Database Backup)

• Prune Topics
• Private messages management
• Event log
• Restart the application

• 25 languages included
• Built-in language manager

• Internal full text search engine for advanced searching
• Quick search

• Customizable help guide included

• Free community support in the YAF.NET support forum