ProBoards
A free, hosted forum service that has run since 2000. Quick to set up, with a large community theme and plugin library, but free forums carry ads and ProBoards branding, and your forum cannot be embedded into your website or exported.
Website Toolbox
A hosted, turnkey, embeddable forum. No ads, 100% your brand, and our team sets it up and customizes it for you, start to finish.
ProBoards and Website Toolbox both provide hosted forums, but they take very different approaches to branding, advertising, embedding, and data ownership. ProBoards, running since 2000, is one of the largest free forum hosting services on the internet: you can create a free forum in seconds, and it offers a deep library of community-made themes and plugins. Website Toolbox is a fully hosted, turnkey forum service that we set up, customize, and maintain for you, with no ads on your forum and 100% your branding. In this article, we compare the two to help you decide which one fits your community.
| Feature | ProBoards | Website Toolbox |
|---|---|---|
| Cost | Free with ads on your forum. Removing ads is a paid add-on measured in pageviews, and a custom domain is a separate add-on. | Simple, transparent pricing with migration included in every plan. No ads on your forum. |
| Branding | ProBoards branding on free forums, and members sign in through a ProBoards-wide account shared by every ProBoards forum. | 100% your brand. Website Toolbox is invisible to your members, including a fully branded mobile app. |
| Embedding | Forums run on ProBoards subdomains and cannot be embedded into your website. | Fully embeddable into your existing website, or standalone on your own domain. |
| Setup | Quick to create a forum, on software whose last major release was in 2013. | Fast, easy setup on actively developed software; our team can do it for you. |
| Single sign on | Not available on the free product, only on the paid business tier. | Seamless single sign on; our team sets it up for you. |
| Themes | A large community library of themes and plugins, with full HTML and CSS access. | Multiple genuinely different themes plus an easy theme builder, done for you. |
| Mobile app | Responsive mobile theme. A native app is available only through a separate service under its own branding. | A branded mobile app that matches your site. |
| Monetization | No built-in paid memberships or monetization tools. | Subscriptions and payments for community access, categories, or features. |
| Support | Community support forum and documentation; phone support only on the paid business tier. | Email, phone, and chat support that sets up and customizes for you. |
| Webhooks & API | No public API on the standard product. | Webhooks and API access in the standard plan. |
| Migration | No way to export or back up your forum; your history stays on ProBoards. | Migration included in every plan: an automated import you can run yourself in a few clicks, or we can do it for you. |
| Development | Current software (v5) released in 2013; the next version has been on hold since 2023. | Actively developed and maintained. |
| Company | Founded in 2000; owned by VerticalScope Holdings since 2021. | Independent, profitable company with 24 years of experience. |
Embedding and Customization
The biggest difference between ProBoards and Website Toolbox is where your forum lives. A ProBoards forum always lives on a ProBoards subdomain, like yourcommunity.proboards.com. There is no supported way to embed the forum into your own website: requests that load forum content inside an iframe are not allowed, so your community stays a separate destination that your members leave your site to visit. That can fragment the experience if you already have a website and want the discussion to feel like part of it.
Website Toolbox is designed to be an integral part of your existing website. You can embed the forum into your website built on WordPress, Squarespace, Wix, Shopify, or dozens of other platforms, or run it standalone on your own domain. Your members stay on your site, which keeps the community feeling like part of your brand rather than a separate destination.
Branding and White Label
Free ProBoards forums carry ProBoards branding and ads, and ProBoards uses a global account system: members register once with ProBoards and use that same ProBoards account to sign in to any ProBoards forum. From your members' perspective, the community lives inside a ProBoards-owned experience, with ProBoards ads, ProBoards login, and ProBoards branding around your content. A fully white-labeled forum is only available on ProBoards' paid business tier, which is aimed at larger organizations.
With Website Toolbox, your community is 100% yours. Website Toolbox is completely invisible to your members: they see your logo, your colors, and your domain, and they do not even know a third-party platform is powering the community. Members register and sign in under your brand, not a shared platform-wide account. That includes a fully branded mobile app, so the experience stays consistent on desktop and mobile under your own name and colors.
Themes
ProBoards deserves credit here. It has a large library of community-made themes and plugins built up over two decades, and administrators get full access to HTML and CSS, so communities willing to invest in customization can make their forum look quite distinctive. That power comes with work: themes and plugins are community-made, and styling your forum is largely on you, with help from the support community.
Website Toolbox offers multiple genuinely different themes, not just color tweaks, plus an easy theme builder. You can change the entire look of your forum without editing template files or maintaining third-party plugins, and our team can do the customization for you.
Single Sign On
Single sign on lets your members log in once on your site and stay signed in to their community without leaving it. On the free ProBoards product, there is no single sign on: members register and sign in through ProBoards' own account system on the forum. Single sign on is offered only on ProBoards' paid business tier.
Website Toolbox offers seamless single sign on, and our team sets it up for you. Members log in on your site and use their existing account credentials without being sent away to a third-party service, which keeps the community feeling like a natural part of your website. You can read more about the single sign on methods we support.
Pricing and Advertising
ProBoards is genuinely free to start: you can create a forum in seconds without paying. The tradeoff is that free forums display ads, and the ad revenue belongs to ProBoards. Removing the ads is a paid add-on that is measured by your forum's pageviews, and connecting a custom domain is a separate add-on. There is also no built-in way to charge members or monetize the community yourself on the free product.
Website Toolbox has simple, transparent pricing, with no ads on your forum and migration included in every plan. Webhooks and API access are included in the standard plan, and you can charge for access to your community, categories, or features with built-in subscriptions and payments.
Migration and Data Ownership
This is the most important thing to know before building a community on ProBoards: there is no way to export or back up an entire forum. ProBoards staff have confirmed this directly, and the suggested alternative is that individual members export their own posts. If you ever outgrow ProBoards, your community's history stays on ProBoards.
Website Toolbox includes migration in every plan, and our team handles it for you, so your members and their history carry over without you doing the technical work. Your community belongs to you, under your own name and domain.
Features and Development
ProBoards has been a reliable home for hobby forums since 2000, and that longevity is real. Its current software, however, dates back to a 2013 release, and the next major version entered beta in 2022 but has been on hold since 2023 with no timeline announced. It also does not offer a public API on its standard product, so integrating the forum with your other tools is limited.
Website Toolbox is forum-first, a master of one: we focus on being an excellent, easy-to-run discussion forum and add everything you need in a user-friendly way, without bloat. We are actively developing and improving the product, and webhooks and API access are included in the standard plan so you can connect your community to your other systems.
Mobile App
ProBoards forums use a responsive mobile theme that works well in a mobile browser. A native app for ProBoards forums is available only through a separate app service under its own branding, rather than one branded for your community.
Website Toolbox gives you a fully branded mobile app that matches your website, so your audience enjoys a seamless experience on desktop and mobile with your identity front and center. For communities whose members are largely on phones, a branded app keeps your community in front of them under your own name.
Customer Support
ProBoards offers a support forum and documentation, and its community is generally responsive. Phone support, service agreements, and the team-based engagement that comes with a white-labeled platform are reserved for the paid business tier.
Website Toolbox offers email, phone, and chat support, and our team actively helps you set up, customize, integrate, and use your community, including handling single sign on for you. When you need help, there is a responsive team that knows your forum and can do the work for you, without needing a business tier.
Conclusion
ProBoards is a solid, genuinely free home for a hobby community that does not mind ads, ProBoards branding, or the lack of an escape hatch for its data. Choose Website Toolbox if you want an embeddable, fully branded forum with no ads, simple transparent pricing, migration included, and a team that sets up, customizes, and supports it for you, so your community is under your own name from day one. Choose ProBoards if you want a quick, free, standalone forum for a casual community and you are comfortable with its limits.