Although I haven't been here in a long time, I'd like to add my two cents.

I was furious when I finished the complete translation for YaBB 2.7 and it still wasn't released. That was hours of work for nothing. But anyway. I can probably rightfully claim to run the largest YaBB forum today. Over 60,000 topics with around 480,000 posts and about 850 forums and subforums are quite impressive. YaBB 2.6.12 is still running stably and quickly.

You just need decent nameservers, and I'm using Cloudflare. There are still two or three minor bugs. For example, I recently discovered that newer posts can't be appended to older ones. The window doesn't load completely. Strangely, this error only occurs very rarely. I simply reverse the process by placing the old post before the new one or copying it directly from the server. That works, albeit awkwardly. This bug should be fixed. An upgrade to Debian 13 is coming up soon, and I hope Perl doesn't cause any problems. So far, Perl updates have always gone smoothly. We, or rather a friend of mine, have also created a sitmap generator, which I actually wanted to publish here. But for whom? Nothing's happening with it anymore. Anyone interested is welcome to have it. Perhaps there's still room for improvement. Maybe we'll even finish YaBB 2.7. I don't know if it will be completed. I might also do the German translation for YaBB 2.6.12 (it's actually finished), I just need to reverse it. We'll see if I still have the energy for it. I'd switch to SMF, but there doesn't seem to be a usable conversion program, and archiving is simply impossible.

@ Dandello

Let's at least fix the bugs, and that's that. Then YaBB can run for many more years.


In German

Ich war zwar auch schon lange nicht mehr hier, möchte aber abschließend auch meinen Senf dazugeben.
Stinksauer war ich, als ich als ich die vollständige Übersetzung für YaBB 2.7 fertig hatte und sie dann doch nicht erschien. Das waren Stunden an Arbeit für nichts. Aber egal. Mit Recht kann ich wohl heute behaupten, das wohl größte YaBB-Forum zu betreiben. Über 60000 Themen mit über rund 480000 Beiträgen und rund 850 Foren und Unterforen sind wohl als enorm zu betrachten. YaBB 2.6.12 läuft immer noch stabil und schnell.
Man braucht nur anständige Nameserver wobei ich hier Cloudflare verwende. Zwei bis drei kleine Bugs sind noch vorhanden. So habe ich vor kurzem festgestellt, dass neuere Beiträge nicht an alte anfügen lassen. Das Fenster baut nicht vollständig auf. Dieser Fehler kommt komischerweise nur sehr selten vor. Ich drehe das ganze einfach um, indem ich den alten Beitrag einfach vor den neuen setze oder kopiere direkt vom Server. Das funktioniert, wenn auch umständlich. Diesen Bug sollte man noch beheben. Demnächst steht ein upgrade auf Debian 13 an und ich hoffe, dass PERL keine Probleme macht. Bisher liefen die PERL-updates immer problemlos. Wir haben auch, bzw ein Freund von mir, hat einen Sitmapgenerator gebastelt, den ich eigentlich hier veröffentlichen wollte. Aber für wen? Es passiert ja nichts mehr. Wer Interesse daran hat, kann ihn gerne haben. Vielleicht kann man auch noch einiges verbessern. Vielleicht werden wir noch YaBB 2.7 fertigstellen. Ob er es schafft, weiß ich nicht. Vielleicht werde ich noch für YaBB 2.6.12 die deutsche Übersetzung machen (sie ist eigentlich fertig), ich muß sie nur rückabwickeln. Mal sehen, ob ich noch Lust dazu habe. Ich würde ja auf SMF umsteigen, aber ein brauchbares Konvertierungsprogramm scheint es nicht zu geben und eine Archivierung ist einfach nicht möglich.

@ Dandello

lasse uns wenigstens die Bugs beheben und gut ist es. Dann kann YaBB noch viele Jahre laufen.

Dandello wrote on Apr 13^th, 2026 at 12:09pm:

I hope you'll reconsider shuttering your forums, but I can certainly empathize with that sentiment.

After almost 22 years of operation, the busiest, and most popular YaBB 2.4 forum that I operated finally stopped working in December 2023 due to a "500 Internal Server Error" that was generated when it could no longer run on a newly installed, and updated version of Perl. I had been expecting that to happen for some time.

The thing is, I really only created that particular forum to better manage updates to a popular site that's been operating since 1997. The public chat part of that YaBB 2.4 forum was simply a nice benefit that wasn't really needed, so I didn't move on to another forum software.

As I'm guessing you already know quite well, shortly after the release of YaBB 1.0, YaBB's development team broke apart to create a second program called YaBB SE 1, which was released on November 12, 2001.

Subsequently, though, the development and support team for YaBB SE was shut down in March 2004 with hundreds of communities in operation. That's when those YaBB developers joined the SMF project. A converter was also developed to convert YaBB SE to SMF (Simple Machines Forum).

Even though I decided not to move on to another forum software, as an experiment I installed both a SMF forum, and a phpBB forum. I prefer the phpBB forum software.

Like Derek more or less pointed out, Facebook and other social networking services effectively took the place of chat forums like Yabb a long time ago, which is why I decided not to utilize either a SMF or phpBB forum for any of the websites that I still operate. The forums I have online are simply experimental.

In any case, YaBB's development fascinated me, even to its end. Had I the knowledge that you have when it comes to coding, I very likely would have continued YaBB's development in some fashion as its original software (and mission) allowed, and encouraged.

After all, despite what's taken over when it comes to social media, I still believe that the structure of chat forums are superior to the kind of social media that's popular today.

What I'm reminded of is videotape technology of which VHS became the most popular media format for VCRs even though Betamax was superior. Of course, the last remaining VCR manufacturer ceased production in 2016, so even that battle in the history of technology is no longer relevant.

If you do make the final decision to shutter your forums, your legacy of keeping YaBB alive longer than it otherwise would have been kept alive is a legacy of which to be proud. Kudos to all that you did. 

You know I often sit back and wonder what happened to everyone that was involved in the creation of YaBB back from the early 2000’s.

There were some amazing developers and mod writers many of them who helped me out along the way in the early days.

When it first appeared YaBB was amazing.  The concept still is and I know my forum has the most expansive knowledge of of Australian Camp Oven History.

I am 73 now and I guess I will keep persevering until I can no longer or I guess until YaBB will no longer run on the newer updated versions of perl.

Good to hear from you Dandello.

Discord has taken over the niche on tech related items (games, etc.).

And YaBB is pretty much dead. After the original YaBB site went dark, this became the only YaBB support site. Not to harp on personal difficulties but neither my current computer, nor my health could keep going with YaBB.

In fact, come the new year, I expect I will be mothballing all my own YaBB forums due to lack of visitors.

A real lack of posts for many months on here.

Is YABB still alive?  I know my little forum is still struggling along.  It seems Facebook and all those other social media’s have taken over.