A glimpse on ForumSpark 2.0

Also new in v2.0 is our new "Ask" - AI Assistant. This is an additional way of content discovery next to our improved search. Available to the premium plans. It allows your members to ask a simple question and AI will answer that question based on posts previously made by members presenting you the answer you need within a few moments.

On Jul 4, 2026, Cedric said:

Also new in v2.0 is our new "Ask" - AI Assistant. This is an additional way of content discovery next to our improved search. Available to the premium plans. It allows your members to ask a simple question and if that question has been answered before, AI will track down all topics and posts and find the answer you need within a few moments.

Now, that's what I'm talking about to make a forum get into the future!

Trust Levels: autonomous spam defense

Spam has one favorite target: brand-new accounts. Trust Levels is a new layer of protection that stops spammers cold, while your genuine newcomers barely notice it exists.

Every member climbs a five-step ladder: New, Basic, Member, Regular and Leader. Climbing happens automatically as they participate. Days visited, posts written, reactions received and account age all count toward the next level. No admin work, no approval queues, no moderation overhead.

While an account is still at the bottom of the ladder, the classic spam tools stay locked:

Links: new accounts cannot drop URLs in topics, replies or messages.

Images and attachments: no embedding images or uploading files until trust is earned.

Private messages: DM spam waves from fresh accounts are simply impossible.

Signatures and profile media: no turning a profile into a billboard on day one.

A genuine newcomer unlocks the essentials after just a couple of days of normal participation. A spammer who registers fifty accounts gets fifty accounts that cannot do anything spammy.

Members can follow their own progress on their profile: a trust level card shows where they stand, with a progress bar toward the next level. When they get promoted, a notification tells them exactly what they just unlocked.

And you stay in control. Every level name, every threshold and every unlock is tuneable in the admin panel. You can pin a member to a level, and the top level is yours to grant by hand to the people who have truly earned it.

Trust Levels is off by default. When you switch it on, all your existing members are instantly placed at the level they have already earned, so a three-year veteran will never suddenly find their links blocked.

And sometimes, you just want to reward a certain post with a little gesture. Tipping a post is available when you have the credits extension enabled.

Starting at Launch, our Gallery is a new addition to ForumSpark. Easily share videos and images through the Gallery, create albums, let members share beautiful shots and artwork or more.

Looking forward to seeing the rollout of v2.0.

Love the new logo too!

Sharing and selling resources, services, documents, files, downloads, and more will soon be possible with the new Marketplace.

It gives your community the tools to build a complete resource library, whether that means free downloads, paid files, service listings, or useful documents for your members.

Because Marketplace can require more storage, it will be available on the Launch plan and up. Launch already includes 25GB of storage, but if you need more, you can upgrade to Earn with 250GB or Scale with 500GB.

I seriously don't know how you do it, this is becoming even better than established software such as XenForo. Way better than MyBB, phpBB, SMF, and other software that has been stuck since like 2010.

On Jul 6, 2026, IntellectualLiberation said:

I seriously don't know how you do it, this is becoming even better than established software such as XenForo. Way better than MyBB, phpBB, SMF, and other free software.

Thank you, I really appreciate that.

I think running communities for over two decades gave me a pretty clear idea of what people want from a platform, what feels missing, and what gets in the way when you’re trying to build something properly.

That’s really the goal with ForumSpark: to build a complete, flexible platform that can work for all kinds of communities and niches, without forcing everyone into the same narrow setup.

There’s still a long way to go, of course. The software needs time to mature, improve, and prove itself over the coming years. But the direction is clear, and step by step it should all come together the way it was planned.

As ForumSpark grows and more applications and extensions are added, it makes sense to give admins a clearer overview of what is currently enabled on their community.

Some communities may not need every part of the platform, so this page gives you an easy way to switch features on or off depending on what you actually want to use.

Permissions have had a complete overhaul, giving you much finer control over what each group and member can do. Every permission is now a simple choice: Allow, No, or Never. Set them per group as usual, and when one member needs an exception, override that person directly, granting an extra ability or holding one back, without building a whole new group just for them.

I find myself continuing to check here to see if there's a new update. Super excited for 2.0. It's so much improved it should just skip to 3.0. 😂

Lookin good! :)

I’m always ears if anyone is missing something. Now is the time. 😊

Individual Indicators for Custom Profile Fields?

Probably not possible for 2.0 but i wouldnt mind a full chat application to go along with the gallery, and all, youv'e shown.

Other than that, tags, which was talked about already, but everything looking good all around, nice work @Cedric , cant wait for 2.0.

On Jul 8, 2026, Daedalus said:

Individual Indicators for Custom Profile Fields?

Can you elaborate a bit more?

On Jul 8, 2026, Excalibur said:

Probably not possible for 2.0 but i wouldnt mind a full chat application to go along with the gallery, and all, youv'e shown.

Other than that, tags, which was talked about already, but everything looking good all around, nice work @Cedric , cant wait for 2.0.

I actually did some more work and reworked some parts of the current chat dock we have. It’s not a true chat application, but in a way it does work very similar. There’s avatars on the bottom (dismissible) and clicking opens a small window where you can message instantly. You’re also able to make groups/chat rooms with multiple people.

[quote]On Jul 9, 2026, Cedric said:

Can you elaborate a bit more?[/quote]

Like Jcink has template variables for each individual custom profile to make it easier for customizing the mini profile field and profile pages.

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On Jul 9, 2026, Daedalus said:

[quote]On Jul 9, 2026, Cedric said:

Can you elaborate a bit more?[/quote]

Like Jcink has template variables for each individual custom profile to make it easier for customizing the mini profile field and profile pages.

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Yeah, I’ll be really honest, while variables were present, there will be much less focus on things like this moving forward. We’re spending more time into builders that make things easier requiring no knowledge of code or variables at all.