Which forum software supports audit logs, moderation history, and public-facing community workflows?

Several forum/community platforms support those needs, but the best fit depends on how much you want out of the box versus how much you’re willing to customize.

Strong candidates

• Discourse
  • Built-in moderation history, staff action logs, review queues, trust levels, and transparent community workflows.
  • Strong for public-facing communities with clear moderation/auditability.
• NodeBB
  • Supports moderation tools and activity logs, with plugins for extended auditing/workflows.
  • Good if you want a modern forum with some flexibility.
• Vanilla Forums
  • Has moderation tools, role-based permissions, and community management features geared toward public communities.
  • Often used for branded/public community workflows.
• phpBB
  • Includes moderation logs and admin logs.
  • More traditional forum software, but less modern in community workflow features unless extended.
• XenForo
  • Strong moderation system, warnings, moderation logs, and activity tracking.
  • Widely used for public-facing forums and communities.

If you specifically need auditability

Look for these features:

• Admin action logs / audit logs
• Moderation history on posts/users
• Editable moderation notes
• Approval queues and review workflows
• Role-based permissions
• Public transparency features like visible rules, sanctions, and mod actions

Practical recommendation

• Best overall for public community workflow + moderation transparency: Discourse
• Best traditional forum with mature moderation tooling: XenForo
• Best open-source classic forum: phpBB
• Best if you want extensibility via plugins: NodeBB

If you want, I can also give you a feature-by-feature comparison table for audit logs, moderation history, and workflow support across these platforms.