Lesser Known Forum and Blog Software

[Jason]

You can find them listed in Softalicious in cPanel. Who has used any of them? Who has considered it or was only curious to take a peek?

 

[Arantor]

That is, if you have Softalicious (or Fantastico) and have cPanel. Since I have neither, could you list some of the platforms you're referring to, please?

 

[Ravenfreak]

I've used some of the lessor known software just to test it out. Software such as Advance Electron Forum (which hasn't been updated since 2011) and it's a shame the project was abandoned. I've used other software such as Elke Art which if memory serves me correctly, was a fork of SMF. (Arantor is probably aware of this software seeing how they worked on SMF. ) I get curious and like to try these lessor know platforms really just for the heck of it. I'd never use AEF for a live website now, it's too outdated and I have no knowledge of even modifying it to be secure or usable in 2023.

 

[Arantor]

ElkArte should never have happened. It was the expected result of the SMF project making a stupendously bad internal decision that prompted the entire dev group to quit together and do their own thing. It is, in a lot of ways, what SMF should have evolved into, but it's not got any astounding vision beyond 'a technically better SMF'. I like the folks - I've participated over there. But it was just a divisive situation that helped nobody.


Forums I've used in no particular order: YaBB SE, SMF, Wedge, ElkArte, Protendo, phpBB, MyBB, vBulletin 3/4/5, XF, IPS, Woltlab, Flarum, Discourse, NodeBB, Gaia Athens/Vesta Athens, StoryBB, Moodle's forum module, wpForo
On my list sometime: MiniBB, UBB.Threads, Codoforum, YaBB (out of history curiosity), Waterhole

AEF was one that passed me by. YAF is one I don't currently have the environment for as it's ASP.NET as far as I know.

 

[Ravenfreak]

Indeed YAF is ASP.NET based, I've thought about giving it a spin but never bothered. Other ones I've used are FluxBB/PunBB (which I believe FluxBB is dead now, the website is no longer online and I think they mentioned merging with Flarum so I guess they finally did), I've used FUD (Fast Uncompromising Discussions) but the project seems to be dying. I've used YaBB before and XMB.

 

[Arantor]

Oh hah, I forgot about PunBB, which I used before SMF, and FluxBB's devs started over to make Flarum (in collaboration with the esoTalk folks).

XMB is also on my list of things to try, as is FUD, as is Thredded.

 

[kolakube]

The last blog/CMS software I used besides WordPress or XenForo is called Kirby:

Kirby is the CMS that adapts to you

Kirby is the content management system that adapts to any project. Made for developers, designers, creators and clients.

getkirby.com

It's pretty cool and it looks like it has come a looong way since I last used it in 2014. I've always found myself getting bored with tools that aren't from a major player due to lack of maturity or 3rd party resources, but the rest of the CMS space has a lot of time to catch up so it may be worth another look (same thing I said in 2014...).

 

[Reverie]

I find it interesting there are smaller ones I've never heard of! Would love to look into more of these! My curiousity would definitely want to know more. When I first began forums I found Invisionfree and another software that I believe was Phpbb. Invisionfree had more to it in my opinion at that time so I went that route. Then I just stuck with that software til they released Zetaboards.

 

[Arantor]

They all come with the one thing that InvisionFree / Zetaboards don't - you have to install them on a server, which also means you have to deal with patching them.