Forum software of choice! (1 Viewer)

[Sinistra]

What is your forum software of choice. For me it has to be IPS Community. I have been using this software before they went public and became paid forum software. but I am looking into getting into other forum software for development such as theme design and plugins

 

[Aaron]

Paid is Xenforo and free would be MyBB & phpBB.

 

[kensonplays]

For me, paid option would be XenForo. Much more affordable than IPS' high prices. They do not offer a version for hobby communities (that also offers basic Pages support, at least).

For free: Simple Machines Forum, the only free one I have any experience with.

 

[Tracy]

What is your forum software of choice. For me it has to be IPS Community. I have been using this software before they went public and became paid forum software. but I am looking into getting into other forum software for development such as theme design and plugins

There really is no fixed answer if one looks at overall needs instead of preferences. For some sites, their needs will be IPS. For others, it will be XenForo, while for others Woltlab will fit the bill. Then you have those that SMF/MyBB/phpBB and such will work because of the cost and the fact they only need simplicity.
So, what you have to do is look at what the site requires, then determine which software fits the bill for that. Buying into "I only run XF/IPS/whatever" is not a very smart choice.
Classic case... for my second site in my sig, I could have gotten by with IPS (and it originally ran on that)... but I'd have to renew that license, and then I want a little longer than 2 year guarantee that I can run self-hosted. I had the spare XF license on hand, and really wanted to start working at pushing a few add-ons customized to that niche (still haven't had much time to play with them).

 

[Cory]

I've grown accustomed to Xenforo for paid forum software. It seems like there are a lot of nifty features and the overall atmosphere seems relaxing. If I owned a forum as a business or had the expertise to deal with server-side scripting, then I would probably choose Xenforo.

For free forum software, I'm not sure since the only free forum software I use now is Jcink and I know there are a variety of different options available that I have yet to try. I come from the days of InvisionFree, so Jcink was the software I could find closest to my familiarity with the software.

 

[Liam]

ZetaBoards

 

[Empire]

For me, it would ahve to be IPB, since the start when joining Fourms back in the day I used IPB3 as a member on many sites that used them I always find it easy to stick with them since I went away from SMF to IPB. I always liked it and even that we at times get pooped and banged up about it, doesn't mean that I move away from them hahahah

 

[Tracy]

I have to wonder how many that have (so far) responded here have actually had direct exposure to the other scripts (especially paid ones). The only major paid one I haven't as a forum owner had exposure to is vB... but I have helped out several sites that ran it. And at one time or another I've played with most of the major "open source" scripts.... all the way down to Joomla (my first exposure to internet scripts).

 

[Sinistra]

I'm shocked I haven't seen any vBulletin fans, when I started my forum journey back in 2001 you only had vBulletin as a paid software at the time. I have had exposure to mainly IPS and vBulletin but it's nice to see that there are more options these days. I have seen people talk about free forum software here too. As for a free alternative I would use PHPbb

 

[TwitchisMental]

I personally prefer SMF and XF.

 

[JoshB]

Paid apps would be IPB and XF, have used both of these software suites for some time. Running IPB for my project as I've been enjoying the feel of it for some time now. I still enjoy XF but found the lack of improvements for a while lately.

 

[Ravenfreak]

I personally like Woltlab and SMF the most. Xenforo is good too, but I feel that Woltlab is a tad bit better since it comes with a CMS with no additional cost. The support forums are helpful, though it is a German based company so not everyone speaks English but there are good number of staff that do. Simple Machines Forum is hands down the best free software IMO. It's going to be different for everyone though, I recommend anyone who's wanting to start a new forum to do test installs and try demos of different software to find one that fits your needs and one you feel comfortable using.

 

[SoluDome]

For me it would be XF anyday for now.

Reasons are very simple:

1.Developers are friendly and supportive if you are into development and ask questions for same. They will guide you.
2. Code and software stability
3. Community support and 3rd party developers.
4. XF developer documentation make development easier.

 

[Tracy]

For me it would be XF anyday for now.

Reasons are very simple:

1.Developers are friendly and supportive if you are into development and ask questions for same. They will guide you.
2. Code and software stability
3. Community support and 3rd party developers.
4. XF developer documentation make development easier.

In most aspects I would agree... but the actual XF developers simply seem to throw their license holders (and those license holders users) to the curb when it comes to improvements... They seem to be inherently fixated on how they can make it easier on developers to extend their script... many times at the cost of those self-same admins that are already paying them a healthy price for what little they get.
If you expect to get much from them directly that benefits the end user... monkeys flinging poo have a higher incidence of occurrence.
This has been fairly consistent amongst the last several versions. It really appears that XF has no actual "vision" to the future.. instead depending on 3rd parties to provide (and usually at additional cost) that for them.

The sad thing is... I've been a LONG time XF proponent... but over the last few years... I can clearly see where the developers have lost their way as to what benefits the actual end user (and their members)... and it has swerved to "how can we push off advancements on 3rd party providers". It's rather chickenshit honestly... but it's to be expected... XF has LONG history of trending to push off extending their script to 3rd party developers that have a history of leaving the environ.
In the long run... you want to offer much to your users and you use XF... bend over and grab your ankles... because you are in for a "surprise".

I mean... really... such a simple thing as you can "mirror" images in a node to the gallery... but they aren't intelligent enough to mirror any "custom thread" entries also.. how hard can that be? Even if those "thread prefixes " don't exist for the gallery (in most cases they will, simply with other names in the field id and it's easy enough to map one to the other programatically), how hard can it be... just one more case of where XenForo had a VERY limited vision of what they could do.

 

[Mini Maul]

ZetaBoards

Yeah....

Xenforo is pretty dominant.
Though like others have said, Jcink because I come from the Invisionfree days and i know a little bit about the 'under the hood' part of the board which if you are running a board, makes it slightly easier.

 

[Dismal_Bliss]

I'm a major Invision fan - I use IPS on 2 communities. They are by far the most advanced, complete community software and it's under constant development, being updated on a monthly basis.

 

[Uncrowned]

For just a forum, Xenforo paid or MyBB free. For larger projects then IPS paid or perhaps phpBB for free, but a massive * after phpBB as the custom work needed is a lot.

However, IPS 5 looks like I might start swinging to them for both just a forum and also for larger projects, but I can't say that just yet as it is still not released.

 

[Liam]

Yeah....

Xenforo is pretty dominant.
Though like others have said, Jcink because I come from the Invisionfree days and i know a little bit about the 'under the hood' part of the board which if you are running a board, makes it slightly easier.

Nice to hear from you @Mini Maul Hope you've been well!

 

[kensonplays]

I'm a major Invision fan - I use IPS on 2 communities. They are by far the most advanced, complete community software and it's under constant development, being updated on a monthly basis.

I've noticed that most IPS forums seem to have more limited, or simpler post/reply editors? Like on the vast majority of IPS sites, either they disable the Table bbcode, or it doesn't exist?

 

[Arantor]

IPS doesn’t use bbcode any more. They also (correctly) figured that replying most of the time just didn’t need any complex formatting.