Favourite forum software?

[Tornado]

What's your favourite forum software? For free mine would be MyBB and phpBB, paid would be (by far) xenForo. They have the most features and I generally just like the structure.

 

[Alex]

I have been using phpBB for my forum and it has been great! I cannot fault it. You can navigate yourself around the ACP without any hassle. I like the general look of the forum software too. I also love the fact that the software is a free software compared some other's board software's that are paid! Overall, I think phpBB is the way to go when you own a forum!

 

[Mushmellow1]

Phpbb free forum software and Burning Board paid software. Burning Boards is very neat and fancy.

 

[Golddisk]

I like MyBB. It is nice free and is definitely the best of the free software's. Phpbb is alright, too, but MyBB seems more intuitive overall. I haven't used Zenforo for my own forums, but I am on a lot of forums that do use it and have heard lots of positive things about it.

 

[Florin Hangu]

I have tried many forums board. I would say, as paied forums software, greatest are IPB and Burning Board.

And as free ones, try Flarum(ssh access only), myBB or even FluxBB, they are really cool.

There are many in there, such as ElkArte, or FlaskBB...

 

[Na11]

Proboards and MyBB.

 

[Keranov]

There are basically tons of forum software out there - phpBB, MyBB, XenForo, IPB, vBulletin and much more. Which one is your favourite? Do you have any particular reasons?

Personally, I like the XenForo forum software. I think it's features are worth the price tag it has. There are a lot of plugins and themes available for it. But if I have to go with a free software I would choose MyBB.

 

[jyy1]

I'm not really sure if any forum software is "bad". I mean, I gravitate toward XenForo and MyBB (2nd choice) because I'm used to it.

Anyhow there was an issue with vBulletin being terrible with spam and graphics, but that might just have been the owner's fault.

 

[Alex]

I agree with Jason, no forum software is bad, it's all down to personal preference and choice. My preferred software is phpBB,. I've used phpBB since I was 14 years old when I created my ever community. The ACP is was really easy to navigate and use, along with the basic software layout being very appealing to the eye.

 

[Ash]

It has to be MyBB and XenForo for me. Which one I choose will always be down to what budget I have. If I have the funds to spend on software, I would love to go for XenForo but the majority of the time, I will choose MyBB due to it being free and having a great collection of plugins and themes available.

 

[Oblivion Knight]

vBulletin 2.x and 3.x were awesome, but are now quite outdated and probably somewhat insecure.. I wouldn't even consider vBulletin 4.x or 5.x though from things that I've heard.

XenForo is definitely my software of choice right now. The look, feel, and flexibility is quite incredible..

 

[Ash]

vBulletin used to be so popular and it's a shame that they aren't as popular as they used to be. I used to be an admin on a vBulletin forum and it was actually really good. ACP was good, features were decent but I guess it just couldn't compete with Invision and XenForo. They had some beautiful themes back then as well

 

[jyy1]

vBulletin used to be so popular and it's a shame that they aren't as popular as they used to be. I used to be an admin on a vBulletin forum and it was actually really good. ACP was good, features were decent but I guess it just couldn't compete with Invision and XenForo. They had some beautiful themes back then as well

Did VB - even have a competitor back then (2000s)?

 

[weboogle]

XF because its popular and has tons of addons.

 

[Ash]

Did VB - even have a competitor back then (2000s)?

Not sure really. I think Simple Machine Forums might have had a similar release date to when vBulletin came out so that might have been a competitor. Although when you compare both software right now, I'm not too sure that SMF comes even close to vBulletin at all. Something called Web Wiz also was around back then as well although this is the first time I've ever heard of it.

 

[jyy1]

Not sure really. I think Simple Machine Forums might have had a similar release date to when vBulletin came out so that might have been a competitor. Although when you compare both software right now, I'm not too sure that SMF comes even close to vBulletin at all. Something called Web Wiz also was around back then as well although this is the first time I've ever heard of it.

I'm thinking SMF is terrible, mobile-wise, so I wouldn't want to mess with it - but you can buy premium themes (which are mobile-ready, of course).

 

[Ash]

Oh, yeah, SMF is terrible. It was probably not a bad choice back then but right now, it is seriously lacking and behind a lot of the current forum software available right now. To be fair, it was probably a terrible software back then as well which probably helped vBulletin quite a bit.

 

[jyy1]

MyBB is good - but the free phpBB themes don't have login error problems.

 

[Xyphien1]

Xenforo hands down. I've been a XF fan since I was able to afford it. From my first purchase I've racked up over 5 licenses thus far.

 

[bharath]

Xenforo is good for me and the free one as MYBB since they update every time even they won't get money. I am still with Xenforo because it is light weight and easy to handle large forums.