MyBB Community Forums

I'm new to MyBB and i can't seem to figure out what is the right/best practice when it comes to modifications.

I see that MyBB has a plugin system which people can use to create new PHP features or modify a theme but when surfing the community forums some people said that its better not to have too many plugins because plugins can be vulnerable, plugins query the database which is unnecessary and can be avoided, and some other things.

Now if leaving plugins behind, hardcoding is the other option that i see but it seems during cms upgrades, it could affect the code/scripts.

If you were someone who wants to add new features to your board that make use of HTML & CSS and/or PHP, what route would you take (do hardcode or plugins)? If hardcode then how does the MyBB upgrade script interact/impact/affect the previous code?

What's the best practice for long-term basis?

hard code modifications should be used only if necessary. plugins should also be used sparingly !

MyBB upgrade script doesn't take care of hard code modifications. such edits should be manually done again.

a plugin like MyBB-Patches can be helpful in maintenance of the code modifications.
however that plugin was coded for an older version of MyBB. it might still work with MyBB 1.8.x

(2017-06-29, 02:37 PM).m. Wrote: [ -> ]hard code modifications should be used only if necessary. plugins should also be used sparingly !

MyBB upgrade script doesn't take care of hard code modifications. such edits should be manually done again.

a plugin like MyBB-Patches can be helpful in maintenance of the code modifications.
however that plugin was coded for an older version of MyBB. it might still work with MyBB 1.8.x

Thanks .m. for your reply! It shined some light, however, i am still a little lost.

If neither are better than one another then what is the recommended practice?

plugins need not be avoided completely.
care needs to be taken in selecting better plugins for running forum smoothly.