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angloscot
June 15th, 2008, 01:16 PM
Hi there, does anyone know of good free (ideally Open Source) web forum software. My fiancée is trying to put together a website (largely done) and as part of it she wants a web forum (not tried yet). We've looked at our favourite forums, and they pretty much all run on VBulletin 3.*.* including, I noticed, this one. But as new licenses for that come in at about $100 or $180 that's a little out of our budget, so we were wondering if anyone has a recommendation or any useful experiences of free forum software?

Hopefully thanks in advance!

Skorzen
June 15th, 2008, 01:18 PM
Try phpBB.
http://www.phpbb.com/

John.Michael.Kane
June 15th, 2008, 01:26 PM
You can look into these.
SMF (http://www.simplemachines.org/)
phpbb (http://www.phpbb.com/development/)
PunBB (http://punbb.informer.com/)

angloscot
June 15th, 2008, 01:26 PM
Oh, phpBB looks interesting - have you used it sucessfully?

az
June 15th, 2008, 02:45 PM
Oh, phpBB looks interesting - have you used it sucessfully?

To be honest, I don't know why anyone would want to use anything else, including vBuletin.

http://forum.ontariorabbits.org/index.php
http://forums.lugradio.org/
http://www.breadnroses.ca/forums/

It seems to be used everywhere you look...

hyper_ch
June 15th, 2008, 03:25 PM
To be honest, I don't know why anyone would want to use anything else, including vBuletin.

phpBB2 was known to be hacked often ;)

klange
June 15th, 2008, 03:28 PM
To be honest, I don't know why anyone would want to use anything else, including vBuletin.

The phpBB devs and support forum moderators are stuck up a-holes. That's a good reason to not use it.
I wrote my own forum (http://oasis-games.com) (available under GPL).

az
June 15th, 2008, 05:33 PM
phpBB2 was known to be hacked often ;)


The phpBB devs and support forum moderators are stuck up a-holes. That's a good reason to not use it.
I wrote my own forum (http://oasis-games.com) (available under GPL).

It has the largest community behind it. It is in a healthy position. I don't see it losing it's spot as the most popular and most used free/libre forum software anytime soon.

gameryoshi600
June 15th, 2008, 05:38 PM
vbulletin is the best but you gotta buy it. phpbb looks good though.

Mr. Picklesworth
June 15th, 2008, 05:54 PM
I think a lot of web sites use self-contained forums when they should really be using site-wide CMSs. For example, Drupal is a really nice system for that stuff if you want it up and running in seconds. (Personally, my vote is with Django, but that one isn't really a CMS).
Another interesting one that has received some attention of late is Joomla.

Le-Froid
June 15th, 2008, 06:00 PM
I would recommend VBulletin or phpBB...or maby mine, once I finish it :p

angloscot
June 15th, 2008, 06:23 PM
Those look pretty solid to me, couldn't tell that they weren't Vbulletin. thanks.

angloscot
June 15th, 2008, 06:25 PM
phpBB2 was known to be hacked often ;)

Ahh, that is useful to know!

angloscot
June 15th, 2008, 06:29 PM
The phpBB devs and support forum moderators are stuck up a-holes. That's a good reason to not use it.
I wrote my own forum (http://oasis-games.com) (available under GPL).

I'll have a look at it, cheers.

Old_Grey_Wolf
June 15th, 2008, 07:16 PM
phpbb is in the Ubuntu repository. The Ubuntu repository also include LAMP server.

smartboyathome
June 15th, 2008, 07:19 PM
My vote would go to SMF if you are going free, but that is just because it is the only other one I have used. :P

Old_Grey_Wolf
June 15th, 2008, 07:26 PM
I bookmarked this site comparing some of the free BB's. http://www.sitepoint.com/article/forum-software-roundup

It doesn't include MyBB. http://www.mybboard.net/

Polygon
June 15th, 2008, 07:36 PM
but as we all know you shouldent necessarily go for the most popular software choice. I put my vote towards Simple Machine (smf)

Old_Grey_Wolf
June 15th, 2008, 07:41 PM
but as we all know you shouldent necessarily go for the most popular software choice. I put my vote towards Simple Machine (smf)

To be fair to the guy that wrote the article, he also included links to lists of other BB's in his conclusion. See last page. Simple Machines Forum (SMF) was listed there.

nick09
June 15th, 2008, 07:44 PM
I recommend SMF because its just as good as the paid forum software for free. You can install packages(mods) through the package manager and you can easily install themes. SMF also has my vote on stability and security.

PetruM
June 15th, 2008, 08:10 PM
Hi there, angloscot!

I suggest you make up a list of mods and plugins you will need and see what forum software has and supports them. :)
I recommend SMF (http://www.simplemachines.org) and MyBB (http://www.mybboard.net). I've used phpBB for a few years, then switched to SMF and then MyBB (which I've enjoyed the most; has a lot of useful things out-of-the-box). :popcorn:

angloscot
June 15th, 2008, 08:24 PM
Hi there, angloscot!

I suggest you make up a list of mods and plugins you will need and see what forum software has and supports them. :)
I recommend SMF (http://www.simplemachines.org) and MyBB (http://www.mybboard.net). I've used phpBB for a few years, then switched to SMF and then MyBB (which I've enjoyed the most; has a lot of useful things out-of-the-box). :popcorn:

I think we'll go for the simplest out of the box really, but I'm sure we'll give both a go. I think it will be pretty low level, but I'll go away and find out what she's going to want.
thanks!

Old_Grey_Wolf
June 15th, 2008, 08:28 PM
Angloscot,

I don't know if you are hosting the website on your own computer or using a hosting service.

If you are using a hosting service, they may only support some of the languages used for BB's like ASP, CGI/Perl, Java/JSP, or PHP. They may not support some of the databases like MySQL, PostgreSQL, DMB, MS Access, MSSQL, etc.

What a website hosting service supports will limit your options. You may want to ask them what they suggest you use.