The best (free) forum software?

[Morten P]

What is the best free forum software around these days?
Anything you can recommend?
I am thinking about changing my forum software (Orca by Bonex) as I really do not think it is very good - I can't delete spam even as an Administrator for one thing. I would really appreciate your advice on this.

/Morten
iParents.net Parenting, Pregnancy, GoodNights Sleep Solution, Reviews, Classifieds, Tickers, and more!

[jamestl2]

I don't know why that software won't let you delete spammy threads, you should be able to as the forum owner / administrator, but these charts may help you out in finding good software (PHP based):
Comparison of Internet forum software (PHP)

[Dan.Linehan]

Yeah, Boonex has tons of problems. Avoid avoid avoid.

[aussieNickuss]

What about phpBB?

[ellie]

yeah phbb is meant to be good, but I lurve vbulletin (which you do have to pay for).

[Niki]

I recommend you to check out Simple Machines Forum. It's one of the best I have ever seen, and it's free!

Simple MachinesWebsite


Features

[Restrikted]

Originally Posted by ellie

yeah phbb is meant to be good, but I lurve vbulletin (which you do have to pay for).

I agree with this. I've messed around with phpBB for a while and its good software in my opinion. But go with vBulletin if you don't mind paying for it.

[Gene]

Originally Posted by aussieNickuss

What about phpBB?

For the very modest needs I have for forum software I like the latest version of phpBB which is version 3 if I remember correctly. If I were running a high volume forum I might go with one of the commercial offerings.

[Morten P]

Ok, thanks guys - I will take a look at your suggestions. phpBB seems well supported and Simple Machines look great too. Next issue will be the installation, but hopefully I can figure it out. Thanks again.

[AndrewJ]

You can install it with a few clicks if your web host provides fantastico.

Andrew

[Morten P]

Is that phpBB you are talking about Andrew?
Next question is: will a new forum (phpBB or other) integrate with Dolphin? I am not impressed with Dolphin, but it does give you quite a lot of features.

[prasunsen]

Originally Posted by Niki

I recommend you to check out Simple Machines Forum. It's one of the best I have ever seen, and it's free!

Simple MachinesWebsite


Features

My vote goes for Simple Machines as well. PHPBB is not well written and looks much cheaper.

What is Dolphin?

[Morten P]

Dolphin is a community platform from Boonex - you can do a lot with it, take a look at Dolphin :: Smart Community Builder :: Free Software or iParents Connect (my site).
I would be happy (well, sort of) if I just could make the present forum (Orca) work properly, ie. be able to delete spam and stuff like that, but at the moment I can't, so I am considering alternatives. The support for Orca is non existing

[barbt]

Don't forget about

Elgg: the open source social networking platform

Enjoy,

Barbara

[yogesh sarkar]

I would recommend phpbb, I used to run my forum on a fully modded phpbb a while back and I am now running that forum on vBulletin and another on SMF. Out of the three softwares, SMF is the most complex administration wise and I have a feeling it is not as search engine friendly as phpbb or vBulletin.

[Whatsnext]

Among free and open source software, phpBB tops my list. Fairly good product, huge MOD database, and pretty good support.

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

Hope this can help!

[DWR]

I would suggest creating test installations of both phpBB (the new version is much better than the last) and Simple Machines Forum, experiment with them and decide for yourself which you like best. I personally chose SMF for the forum I am presently building, but it was a really tough call... one or the other will just have to "feel right" to you overall, but either one would "do the job".

I found phpBB a little easier to customize (I used the built in subsilver2 theme rather than the default, which I find to be pretty awkward) using CSS and making small changes to the table structure, but after spending time with SMF I figured out how to make it match my site's scheme and just liked the overall "feel" of it a bit better... though there would be no way for me to put the reasoning into words... you really just have to try them out for yourself.

[frankfortpost]

I currently use Activeboard. ActiveBoard - Free forum hosting / message boards

The only con thus far is the fact that the links are "nofollow" and I don't
believe the threads index in the search engines.

[krackato]

Punbb is surprisingly good. It's small, fast, and very, very easy to administer. Version 1.3 should be out sooner or later with little graphical improvements.

My friend really likes phpBB although it's not secure at all from what I've read/heard.

[robertanthony]

Try this FreebieList.com: Free message boards and bulletin forums

[Gazzali]

Originally Posted by Niki

I recommend you to check out Simple Machines Forum. It's one of the best I have ever seen, and it's free!

Simple MachinesWebsite


Features

Hi there

Do you know how to download this stuff. I am interested.

cheers
gazzali
PROenrichment

[robertanthony]

The best forum software that I have found is Create your own free forum, FORUMOTION - Make your forum for free it's easy and does not take any technical know how and can be attached to blog.

[robertanthony]

Here's another one Welcome | drupal.org