What is the best forum software?

[xtremee]

Hi all,

In your opinion: what is the best forum Software? and What is its advantage and disadvantages?

Edited September 16, 2006 by xtremee

[tain]

IPB is my favorite by far, but vBulletin is the 500lb gorilla. They are both fast and feature-packed. Disadvatange: not free.

Among the free ones, I like SMF the best. It is fast and has lots of features. The community is growing, but still not as robust as the others.

The next version of phpBB is supposed to be a big step towards being able to compete with these other forums in term of feature sets. It is the most popular of the free forums but is currently lacking in official features.

[prx984]

iv only worked with IPB, phpBB and PunBB and they all have theyre own advantages. However, IPB has to be the best. It has the most features and add-ons available for it (from what i have seen anyway)

phpBB is, imo, a nicer looking forum though, i like the look and simplicity of it.

but by far my favourite is punBB, its small, fast, and its got a lot of add-ons as well. also, i like the look of it a lot too, not as much as phpBB, but its pretty darn close. i like the simplicity factor of setting it up and using it too.

the best way for you to find out which is the best is to take them for a trial run. setup a free hosting package with a company and just try some different ones. for testing phpBB and IPB, try www.forum er.com (no space) and for trying punBB try using www.my-place.us

Edited September 16, 2006 by Cygnus

[CoffeeFiend]

phpbb is free, the other 2 aren't. I've picked other regardless

[At0mic]

I've been using YaBB for three years now and I'm very please with it.

[Chozo4]

I used to use the free version of Invision Beta3 for quite a while. It was feature rich at the time and wasn't hard to setup but also required mysql installed. Just if you're someone like me - you'd tend to lose pride in something not done by yourself. So...it got taken down in favor of my own forum board software I've been personally working on which doesn't need mysql at all. Which can be seen in use by following the 'board' link in my signature.

edit: .. which i need to redo since it seems a 4-line cap has been recently enforced on signatures. The 'board' link mentioned would be here.

Edited September 19, 2006 by Chozo4

[Nuno Brito]

Here's an interesting option:

http://www.seo-board.com/

It's free and fast, an overall good option for small forums and people worried about SEO (Search Engine Optimization)..

[EchoNoise]

Vanilla

I love vanilla

[Martijn]

I like UseBB because its just useable. It doesn't have as many features as phpBB, vB, and others but it does have some features by default that have only appear as either a modification or a later version of the other boards, like a quick reply.

[Zxian]

PunBB is what I just installed on my website - it's small, fast, and clean.

I like PunBB so far...

Zxian's Forum