Best Forum Software

Which one do you like the most?

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nepcker

nepcker

Proud Mac Pro Owner
Which forums do you like the most? Vote away!

My favourites:
Best free: InvisionFree
Best paid: Invision Power Board
 
Aberforth

Aberforth

The Internationalist
I'd choose vBulletin. IPB upgrades are a nightmare, in every major upgrade the whole thing goes down, their Blog and Gallery are not always compatible with upgrades, availability of mods are very small and takes a long time to upgrade. Nothing like vb.org and the plugin system of upgrade and free decent galleries and blogs (comparable to IPS's paid).
 
iMav

iMav

The Devil's Advocate
hmm ... phpbb2 had sooooooooooooooooo many mods and if mods are what u r looking for then theres no beating the open source wonder - phpbb
 
T

thunderbird.117

Guest
I beta tested Phpbb3 "Olympus". All i have to say his wow. It is going to be one of the best forum software ever also phpbb 2 mods wont work with phpbb3 because they changed the codes. Dont more most of the mods will come for phpbb3. :)
 
iMav

iMav

The Devil's Advocate
ppl have already started wrking on mods for olympus a lot of them hav been un-officially released
 
Aberforth

Aberforth

The Internationalist
I tried phpBB 2.XX for 2 days before making a switch to IPB 1.3 when I started out. The problem with phpBB two was, very few features are there by default and adding a mod can be quite a hell load of coding... Moreover changing a skin required modding the files again or huthing which file we changed at NN point of time with ZZ mod. I found I would end up more time coding than developing my forum so went for robust solutions. The existence of too many exploits was another turn off. Hope phpBB 3.0 changes that, have no experience of it yet.

I would say SMF is not bad. It has a decent amount of features, good free skins and mods to be a strong contender for IPB. SMF and IPB both are light on resources. The best thing about SMF is its free, a steal at the things it offers. If you want to start out a forum, give SMF a try.

vBulletin is a class apart, it has most of the features we need in a forum, built in. Almost all the controls, interface and looks can be customized through the Admin interface and the amount of free or cheap mods/skin available in resource sites is mind boggling. vBulletin is much better in the SEO front than IPB or phpBB. Incidentally IPB 2.1.X versions had a few design flaws which could lead to getting penalized by Google and some popular search engines.
 
iMav

iMav

The Devil's Advocate
ppl log visit the new phpbb.com ... to get a sense what the new olympus is all about ... phpbb has installed the theme they are gonna release with their phpbb3 ... and my opinion its an awesomely cool theme

and aber forgetting our past discussions have a look at phpbb 3

*area51.phpbb.com/phpBB
 
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iMav

iMav

The Devil's Advocate
the thing is we should be comparing these softwares as they come and not what can be done after modding .. so in that sense maybe ipb can be better than vb

but as far as ipb what i hate most about it is its admin ctrl panel its just too confusing
 
Aberforth

Aberforth

The Internationalist
mAV3 said:
and aber forgetting our past discussions have a look at phpbb 3
Click to expand...

Past discussions? Well....I had a check of the link you mentioned. Looks good but I guess I'll have to give it a good test run on my server to check its full potentials.

Indyan said:
Nope. IPB is much more modern.
One really nice thing is, it automatically resizes large images, to fit to frame.

Have you seen the new member pages? They are also very nice.
Click to expand...

Resizing images in nothing revolutionary, we can add a small JavaScript to one of the Board Header HTML bits.

Second quite some of my members will have a problem with the massive use of AJAX in the new member pages, they tend to be complicated.

mAV3 said:
the thing is we should be comparing these softwares as they come and not what can be done after modding .. so in that sense maybe ipb can be better than vb

but as far as ipb what i hate most about it is its admin ctrl panel its just too confusing
Click to expand...

vB still scores quite good and frankly comparing softwares also involves the freebies available. Most forums softwares have basic functions and to suit the needs of the community and to gain 'sticky members' we need good things to offer in addition to contents. Mods and good skins come to help in this area.

IPB resource sites have only a few mods and skins and the developers consist of an uncommitted group which means you have to wait months for a mod upgrade/support or hand code yourself or pay a bomb to get them made. Request a few times and the people at IZE hail you with abuses or insults. vBulletin has a very large community which contributes an equally large array of mods and skins. The only contender in this regard is the phpBB community which is about the most active and helpful I have ever seen.

And yes, Admin Panel is confusing, worse is member interface in IPB 2.2.X version which is why I didn't upgrade. It might serve tech enthusiasts and power users but not your average guy or girl and in my forum, I have lots of them. And including people who have a first time in forums and confusing them would land them off somewhere else. vBulletin has managed to pack sophistication while having the "make call easily" simplicity.
 
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