Simple Machines Forum

[stalker145]

Out of curiosity, has anyone here successfully used Simple Machines Forum (SMF) (http://www.simplemachines.org) and if so, what is your take on it? How secure is it? How easy do you find it to use and administer?

I was talking to a friend Saturday who showed it to me and, being the technophile that I am, I was wowed. It seemed so simple (especially with my friend being able to set it up ;) ) and looked nice by default.

So, I tried it. It was so easy - needing only to extract the files into your proposed web directory and off you go. Then came MySQL and PHP.

PHP was a breeze... I think... it worked, anyway.

MySQL was another story. I still don't know what I did after following many, many tutorials, but it magically started working. Once that was done, setup was a breeze.

The big thing that scares me is if my server goes down... will I be able to figure out how to recreate/retrieve everything :shock:

EDIT: I've made your names visible in the poll for the edification of those that wish to try out this software. Please help the needy ;)

[afonic]

It is a great forum software. It is by far the best free forum available, and it even competes in features with commercial solutions like vBulletin.

Security is flawless so far and upgrading to a newer version can be done very easily though the forum admin (package manager).

I am using it in two forums (one with 40,000 members and one with 1,000 but many posts) and I am very satisfied.

[Tux Aubrey]

I'm not an admin, but do use RAV TUX's Cafelinux forums (http://www.cafelinux.org/forum/) which is a simple machines forum. I'm sure he'd give you good feedback (and probably start half a dozen new posts about it :-) )

[derekr44]

I've got SimpleMachines integrated with Joomla on two sites. I love it.

[undine]

I wasn't too impressed by the stable version, but I upgraded to the beta and just love it :) The interface makes it very easy to perform day-to-day administrative tasks, and even though there is a lack of comprehensive documentation at this point, it is intuitive enough so that even a dummy like me can muddle their way through the more complicated tasks.

[miggols99]

I think it's the best free forum. It also integrates well into website CMSs like Joomla and Drupal. I highly recommend it if you don't have the money to buy something like VBulletin.

[mech7]

SMF and PHPBB are some of the best free forums you will find :)

[ticopelp]

I've worked a lot with vBulletin, PHPBB, and SMF, and SMF is by far the best. I liked it so much, I switched the message board I run away from PHPBB to SMF.

[curuxz]

Personally, Since I work with Joomla so much I prefer fireboard, SMF just seemed to lack something, I cant really explain it. Just a nagging dislike of how it worked despite its similarities with other systems.

I do wish the ubuntuforums were powered by something like SMF, i hate BS functionality argument, its opensource if they need it to do more then make it do more for the benefit of everyone.

[snowjm]

I have used SMF on my website and administration is just great! Though I come from a heavy PunBB background which I would have to say first hand is great as well. =p The difference for me is adding features for SMF is almost as simple as clicking a few buttons, which can sometimes be much nicer than editing source.

[leg]

I downloaded it a while ago and installed it locally to try it out. I thought it was a very nice system to both install and use. PHPFreaks (http://www.phpfreaks.com/forums/index.php) is using it if you want to see a live working version.

[stalker145]

Well, I've officially been using this for about 8 hours now and am having a blast. I've been loading up on the various mods available through the web site (there are some cool ones) "improving" my forum. It's a bit disappointing, on occasion, to find one that I really want that doesn't work. I think the first 4 or 5 were tried without me even looking at which versions of SMF the mod was for ](*,) Needless to say, the ones for older versions didn't work.

I like that you can set up the forums to allow no guest access, invites only, moderator approval, or "normal" registration. One must keep the riff-raff out ;)

If anyone here has knowledge on how to make the mailing system for SMF work with GMail, I'd appreciate a hint. I haven't quite figured out how to set that up with their SSL.

Thanks for all the reads and the assurances regarding security.

[argie]

I've tried SMF, but personally the free forum software I like best is MyBB, it has a simple reciprocal licence too.

[bobbocanfly]

Trying to download it but Firefox wont connect to it when i click download. Anyone got an FTP mirror up?

[akiratheoni]

I know of it and don't particularly care for it -- I'll probably end up just installing it just to test it out but I'm not going to do anything serious with it.

[bonzodog]

Yes, I've used a few forums that run it, most notably, the Zenwalk Linux forums. It's a great piece of kit for the end user.

[Yikiwii]

when I first started I was using phpBB2, and now I upgraded to phpBB3 and I must say phpBB3 is very good.

What I love about phpBB, is how you can just customize the hell out of it, vBulleting, IPB... you can also do the same, but with phpBB (at least to me) the sky is the limit... plus its free.
If you haven't got much time, and want to see what the new phpbb3 can offer, just try it out on this host : free forum hosting (http://www.forumotion.com)

[RAV TUX]

I'm not an admin, but do use RAV TUX's Cafelinux forums (http://www.cafelinux.org/forum/) which is a simple machines forum. I'm sure he'd give you good feedback (and probably start half a dozen new posts about it :-) )We at CafeLinux.org also use SMF for the Official gOS Forum (http://cafelinux.org/gosforum/index.php), I find SMF very adequate for all our forum needs.

I highly recommend it and if you need specific help the SMF community forums (http://www.simplemachines.org/community/index.php) is first rate in response and tech support.

[Dr Small]

I've tried SMF, but personally the free forum software I like best is MyBB, it has a simple reciprocal licence too.
+1
I agree.

I prefer MyBB much more than SMF.

[oldb0y]

My LoCo-forum use SMF, I think it works just fine. I don't have any problems with this forum thought...