MyBB Community Forums

This may seem like an odd question, but what exactly is the difference?

Hi Batmandaz,

The difference is mainly the information displayed and how. These two mode won't use the same template.

You can take a look on the characteristics of the portal page on this page: http://docs.mybb.com/1.6/Portal/

The forum is mainly focus on displaying a list of the different forums and categories availables highliting the last post in each forum.

example portal page => http://community.mybb.com/portal.php
example forum index => http://community.mybb.com/index.php

Hmmmm, the portal looks more like a cms, but if thats the case it takes away the bb away from mybb

^ well, basically portal of a forum is like a showcase.
it can be arranged such that it reflects all contents of the forum on a single page view.

(2015-07-23, 08:19 PM)batmandaz Wrote: [ -> ]Hmmmm, the portal looks more like a cms, but if thats the case it takes away the bb away from mybb

It doesn't. "Pure" active forums are more and more a rarity nowadays, other pages supporting them are becoming a necessity. You can disable portal if you don't want to use it though.