Q&A Software Versus Forum Software

Previously, we talked about some open source Q&A softwares. Although we touched the topic in the previous article, a dedicated discussion is probably important. Q&A Software versus Forum Software is an important topic to the webmasters in the context of building communities, usability, usage and SEO.

Q&A Software Versus Forum Software : Lack of Standardised Definition

In case of Q&A website, the questions being asked and expected to be answered with a single correct answer. Who, What, Where, When, How, Why are six important evergreen keywords to increase traffic from search engine. On the other hand, forums are opened for extended discussions and opinions.

Since 1998, many Q&A sites begun to offer a Q&A service, here is a big list :

Q&A websites and forums can not really be compared. They do have some common aspects, but they are two separate systems that achieve different goals. Forums allow a much greater degree of interaction because the members can not only ask questions, but share experiences as well. So, essentially Q&A websites are micro forums.

Forum softwares usually have the common system :

1. Usually focussed on one topic
2. Usually moderators voluntarily moderate across many popular forums
3. Chance to ask a question
4. Chance to answer a question
5. Chance for the moderators and admins to correct/punish bad answers
6. Chance to any non-member to find a question’s answer
7. Chance to start discussion
8. Chance to have a typical off topic thread
9. Chance to vote up/down, give thanks, message or PM system
10. Usually used for standalone website or community of a blog
11. Usually runs as long the topic of forum is living
12. Font size of questions are not bigger but has H1 markup
13. User’s page is about the user and few recently participated topic, who are friends, who visited etc
14. Well differentiated terminologies indicative of power on the forum – moderator, admin, different types of users
15. Well differentiated badges
16. There is flat forum and threaded forum
17. There can be extensive feed system
18. There can be groups
19. There can be hidden threads
20. Easy to insert Third Party Ads like AdSense

On the other hand, Q&A software system is generally :

1. Differentiate questions and answers. There can be feature to alert the asker if it is not like a question.
2. Differentiate answers and comments.
3. Only vote up/down answers
4. Separate answers by votes
5. Accept an answer
6. Question tagging and tag search
7. Merge question as a duplicate of another one
8. Usually used for commercial service or as Q&A websites
9. Font size of questions are bigger and has H1 markup
10. User’s page is about the questions user replied and limited information about the user

Q&A Software Versus Forum Software : Lack of Standardised Definition

Expectedly, the number of Q&A Softwares are quite lesser in number. As we pointed before in one guide, Phabricator’s Ponder is more than enough as Q&A Software. Phabricator is a Free Software. How to install Phabricator is written here. As single standalone light option, Discourse is enough as Q&A Software. Discourse is Open Source and free and identifies themselves towards forums, not Q&A.

On the other hand, the number of Forum Softwares are quite higher in number. There is vBulletin, XenForo as standard paid forum softwares and PHPbb, MyBB, Vanilla to many free softwares as Forum Softwares. vBulletin is definitely most robust on backend, while XenForo is cost effect with neat design, light and integrated SEO.

Which One To Choose?

If you need professionally answer or the discussion is about one product, service or software, then Q&A Softwares are correct. If you need just discussion about one topic, then Forum Softwares are correct. Forum can become really heavy on server and troll is not uncommon. In short, we are saying towards Forum Softwares because Google dislike Q&A sites because Google hates thin content and merging.