What is your favorite forum software?

[gerilya]

Please vote and add a few words to explain your choice.
Thank you!

[Spathiphyllum]

(Other) YaBB - "Favorite" probably isn't the operative word in my case. It just happened to be my "best" choice at the time I needed a simple BB; constant switching between software applications is a pretty low priority for me, so trying different boards as a comparison is unlikely. In the future I would base my decision on stability, speed, and platform and less so on style. Skinnable is nice but not mandatory. Security is mandatory to the extent one is able to determine such a feature.

[the_ancient]

Commercial -- Invision hands down

Free. That is a Hard one there are ALOT of good free boards out there

[Jaded]

phpBB -- I like the stability, flexability, and lots of available mods.

[Ron]

I am using phpBB because I am familiar with it, and I've customized it a little bit on my own. I don't think I've added a single "mod" available, except I have used the admin toolkit that's available.

I have been a critic of phpBBs management for 2+ years now as they had promised a "features" release of 2.2 since they came out with 2.0 about 3 years ago.

About 1 year ago, they decided to "come clean" with everyone and admit that they had scope-creeped from a features release to a full-blown major version change 3.0. The presentation layer was no longer compatible, so any skins or mods made to current skins would be obsolete.

Then they said that not only would they continue to support 2.0 with security patches, but that they would also continue to develop 2.0 from a functionality standpoint... at the same time they were developing 3.0.

I got banned from their bulletin board for my discussion of the issue with them. lol I said I didn't think what they were claiming was realistic. I didn't say it in so many words... I think the phrase I used was:
"lololololololol",
but I'm not sure.

(My "beef" with them was that they should aim for much smaller releases... aim their scope for a six-month release schedule, and if it slips to a year, it's not so very bad. Their response was "it's free, if you don't like what we're doing, go away.")

By the way, they consider phpBB to be "open software", even though they had limited the total number of developers to..... take a guess.... 50? 30? Nope. 6. One of their explanations for the lag in development was that their were personal issues in the lives of their developers. lol Open software indeed. It's more like:
"Available Source Software". The acronym is better, too.

Now, the main developer has quit. Who knows if they will ever deliver anything ever again. Maybe it'll be better. Who knows.

So, if I had to do it all over again, I would absolutely, positively NOT go with phpBB.

[gerilya]

Just stepped by to say how much I appreciate your comments.

We recently got a number of inquiries from customers asking us to install "some good forum software".

I've checked Web Hosting Talk (WHT) for similar discussions, but it looks like they mainly address technical aspects (load, security, mods etc) rather than a personal user experience.

Thank you all for your contributions, feel free to post more

[the_ancient]

I am using phpBB because I am familiar with it, and I've customized it a little bit on my own. I don't think I've added a single "mod" available, except I have used the admin toolkit that's available.

<snipp............................>

"Available Source Software". The acronym is better, too.

Now, the main developer has quit. Who knows if they will ever deliver anything ever again. Maybe it'll be better. Who knows.

So, if I had to do it all over again, I would absolutely, positively NOT go with phpBB.

That is the Best part of OPEN SOURCE, if you dont like how the project is run, FORK IT

[JPC-Greg]

vbulletin hands down. Having tried most others and used and modified phpbb extensively...vbulletin is far more powerful and has a much better set of admin controls.

[Sara]

From an end users perspective I much prefer vbulletin to phpBB. VB just seems cleaner and smoother compared to phpBB.

Haven't really played with either on the admin level, so I couldn't tell you which is "easier" to deal with.

[the_ancient]

you guys must have never used Invison Board then, there is NO WAY a sane person would pick vB over invision

[Vin DSL]

[Ron]

lol

[Spathiphyllum]

lol

Don't you mean "lololololololol"?

[jason]

I've set up a couple of punBB boards and I really like it. Its pretty simple, fast, and all of the code it generates is standards compliant (if you run it out of the box, at least). Its also easy to "skin" by modifying templates and there are quite a few mods available for it.

I've also successfully modded a board to use the TinyMCE WYSIWYG editor, using instructions found on the TinyMCE site's fourums (which happen to be running on punBB).

punBB aslo benefits from "security by obscurity" (although this should never be a reason for using it and/or not keeping up with patches)--fewer installs means fewer people trying to hack it.

--Jason

[Ron]

Don't you mean "lololololololol"?

Naw, this was just a chuckle. He search for "best bulletin board" and provided Google's ummmmm errrr -- "opinion" as his answer.

It was cute.

"lololololololol" is reserved for completely ridiculous comments, like
"Now that we've shown we can't deliver a minor features release in under two years, we're now going to provide development and maintenance on two lines of code."