25 replies to this topic

[Zony]

Can you guys tell me what you think are the best forum system? I like phpbb personal, but invision is good enought to.

[john_meikle]

IPB and VBullitin I would recommend but phpBB is still pretty good

[wwheeler]

IPB and VBullitin I would recommend but phpBB is still pretty good

I used to use PHPBb on my site, but now I use the port of PHPBB that comes with nuke....

-William

[Zony]

I think we can say that is phpbb.. or what?
But is the nuke thing good?

[WeaponX]

You will get different responses to this, but I personally use SimpleMachines Forum (SMF). Have thought about switching to phpBB but was warned of the many security flaws it has in the code and the amount of time it takes the developers to release a fix for it. Not bashing phpBB here (not at all), but SMF does seem to be better (albeit even though more people use phpBB).

InvisionBoard is pretty good also, but it's a paid forum system. SMF seems to be a little faster than most of these forums (free or not).

Zony, I think wwheeler is talking about phpNuke, the content management system (CMS). What this basically does is that is shows many categories of information in one web page. See this site for more information. There are many CMS out there. Another one you might want to take a look at is Mambo. If you use Mambo, I think there is something called a Mambo bridge over at SMF that you can use to have this integrated with each other.

[TJ213]

For our old halomadness site, we used to use a form of InvisionBoard that was free, I think that is one of the best out there, but because of the way the host ran, all we got was a forum, and we couldn't get a backup copy or anything. We also had to host the images using other sites (photobucket) and they would keep dissaperaring.

The new site we have uses PHPBB, and it seems to be good software, but the theme I have now is kinda cheap looking.

I also think the SMF system is fast and clean, but I like PHP-Nuke beter than Mambo.

[john_meikle]

For the PHP-Nuke vs Mambo, I would have to say I would go for mambo i've used both of them and I think mambo is much easier and faster

[yu-cha]

i like phpbb. it is easy to set up and has some nice mods. vBulletin and mombo is really cool too.

[hatim]

I have used PHPBB in recent past to host a local site at my campus . It was neat stuff. I am using Drupal now as i decided to expand more than just forums. There is a list of Open Source Content Management Systems (opensourcecms.com) which has ratings for differnt catagories. In forums PunBB tops. As you can see URL=http://www.opensourcecms.com/index.php?option=content&task=view&id=388&Itemid=143]here[/URL] that PHPBB still has the largest USERBASE.

any one tried punbb yet?

[Jguy101]

I've fallen in love with MyTopix from Jaia Interactive. Fast, nice skin, and new build coming out within few months.....

[sagaxx]

well the best software around here is VBulletin but invision is getting closer , so if you want a payed board get vbulletin !

[Himanshu]

I have personally used php-nuke and mambo and loved mambo above all the cms that I have used. Now coming to the forum system, Invision was good when free.. but now it is not so I have stopped using it.. I tried VBulletin and SMF but liked SMF more.. (no particular reason).. maybe coz SMF integrates well with my Mambo site and the bridge functions quite well...

what else...

Cheers,
Himanshu

[Houdini]

I think we can say that is phpbb.. or what?
But is the nuke thing good?

If you like phpBB then you would like PHP-Nuke right out of the box, the main problems is using mods, but you can get mods that have been ported to PHP-Nuke for the phpBB, but they are hard to find, you can go Here and get some, there are about 28 of them there with a forum that has a list with a description of each MOD for the PHP-Nuke and what it does.

[pyost]

Out of those I've tried (IPB, SMF, phpBB, vBulletin) IPB is the best! Even though it is not free, it has so many options which can really be useful. Furthermore, there are hundreds of mods for all sorts of things.

On the other hand vBulletin is also really good, but I don't like its defaul skin, so that's a minus, whereas I am really keen on the IPB default skin.

phpBB is too easy to hack into (I have not tried it myself, though), and SMF is good, free, secure, but lacks some good options that IPB has.

[WeaponX]

Yeah, have to agree with pyost on this one. IPB is probably the one I would choose for a paid one. vBulletin is more for the advanced user though...many more complicated hacks/mods from what I heard than IPB. But I'm a big IPB fan due to the user interface

Just a few more things to add why I still like SMF better. SMF has free tech support and future upgrades. If a security flaw is found, they will patch it up ASAP. Free is not always better, but when it comes to forum, I have to put it on the top list of forums

[plot]

gawd i hate phpbb so much, how can you like it? i dont like it because i got to use vbulletin once and with all those features i just got bored of phpbb really fast.

[PureHeart]

Best forum system?
What does best mean? Fast, high security/reliable, or something else.
You may know many popular PHP forums. So I'm not going to re-mention them.

I think you should check out this Java forum. It's very fast.

http://www.mvnforum....umweb/index.jsp

[unimatrix]

Costs Money: Vbulletin
Free/SQL based: Invision Power Board
Free/non-SQL: YABB


I've used IVP quit a bit, but currently am using YABB2 on my site since it is not widely used and I am using the member ship text file to enable users to PERL script somewhere else. Since everyone disallows connection to MySQL from remote locations and I'm not ready to spend the big $$ on a dedicated server, it works for my needs.

Invision is a pretty powerful BBS without the security flaws that plagued phpBB.

[Andrew]

If you are just starting your first forum, I recommend using PHPBB.. It's very nice looking, still not VBulletin quality, but personally I prefer posting on PHPBB sites over sites that use VB.

But, if you want to get a little more creative, and have more knowledge in PHP, give Burning Board a shot. They have a pay version as well as a Lite (free) version. I've used the Lite version, and it's more like VBulletin in my opinion. I was able to customize my board to look very nice. Much nicer than I could have done with PHPBB. The pages load fast and there is a more in-depth admin panel. If you got the cash, get the pay version. There is an extensive amount of add-in's you get access to which will make your site even better. The Lite version has Mod's too, but I assume the pay version get's more support.

Burning Board: www.woltlab.de
PHPBB: www.phpbb.com

install them both, mess with the admin panel, and go from there is what I recommend. (btw, personally I wouldn't advise you to use Invisionboard, it's nice but you can achieve a more professional look with WBB or PHPBB, and I think the page loadtime is faster) I hope this information helps you.

Ho

[xboxrulz]

I say Quicksilver Forums is the best forum software out there since it's easily scripted, translated and it's the fastest forums software I've ever used (I'm a forum dweller so I know and used many forum software). I've also been with them ever since its inception. Heck, I helped them split off the main Mercuryboard tree.

www.quicksilverforums.com

xboxrulz