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londonweb

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Sep 14, 2005
260
0
london
Anyone know any good forum software?

This one (ie. vBulletin) is actually one of my favourites as a user, but I've been asked to set one up for a client and I've been looking at an open-source one called phpbb which seems to do the same job and be completely free at the same time. Does anyone else have any experience of it?

check out here: http://www.phpbb.com

suggestions welcome.
 

dr427

macrumors regular
Oct 13, 2005
121
0
Oklahoma City
I've done phpbb and vbulletin and vbulletin was far superior, but also not free.

The admin panel in vbulletin has many many options.

If it was for you (personal interest site) I would say PHPBB, but for a client I would definitely go with vbulletin.
 

heaven

macrumors 6502a
Jun 20, 2004
553
2
dr427 said:
I've done phpbb and vbulletin and vbulletin was far superior, but also not free.

The admin panel in vbulletin has many many options.

If it was for you (personal interest site) I would say PHPBB, but for a client I would definitely go with vbulletin.

I can only second dr427, if you want a free forum, you should better stick to PHPBB, but if you have the money and want to have more features, then vbulletin is your friend ;)
 

steelphantom

macrumors 6502a
Oct 15, 2005
555
1
I'm going to recommend punBB once again over phpBB, as punBB doesn't seem to have the security problems that plague phpBB. punBB is a very lightweight piece of software, is standards compliant, and is easily customizable.
 

AmbitiousLemon

Moderator emeritus
Nov 28, 2001
3,415
3
down in Fraggle Rock
I'd like to put in a vote for Vanilla.

Its a different kind of forum, but after poking around I have found I prefer it greatly to vbulletin or phpbb. But it depends largely on your needs. Check it out though and see if it is for you or not.
 

londonweb

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Sep 14, 2005
260
0
london
great stuff guys.

phpbb claims to have resolved many security issues in it's latest version. I'll have a look at the others you mention too.
 

jaseone

macrumors 65816
Nov 7, 2004
1,245
57
Houston, USA
SMF 1.1 is where it is at - http://simplemachines.org it is still at Release Candidate stage but I often use it and amazed at how much better it does things than either vBulletin or IPB does.

For example SMF is the first forum software I have used where the latest/unread posts function actually works how you would expect it to, if I use one more vB forum and sit there hitting reload wondering why no results are showing I'm going to scream (for some reason you need to click the New posts link again to refresh the list and not just reload the page).

Plus SMF is fast especially with the AJAX post editing in 1.1 RC2.
 

truz

macrumors 6502a
Jan 1, 2006
619
1
Florida
vbulletin is by far the best. I have two copies of vbulletin but currently they have issues with importing the latest version of phpbb to vbulletin. This is why my website is still using phpbb =/ Oh well. I have a mac board I'm working on now so I will get that vbulletin license in use ;) link to the mac board will be in my sig once its ready for posting.
 

zimv20

macrumors 601
Jul 18, 2002
4,402
11
toronto
londonweb said:
great stuff guys.

phpbb claims to have resolved many security issues in it's latest version. I'll have a look at the others you mention too.
i've had one of my phpBB forums hacked a couple times. the first was on an old version and they really did a number on it, had to restore from backup. the second was fairly harmless but still annoying.

there's still some kind of bug where hackers are signing up for new accounts in such a way that, when i go to the admin page to delete them, they're able to replace their userid with "admin" in the username field. that means whenever i Submit changes on that form, i'm prompted to see if i really mean to change the Admin password. sneaky bastards.

i've had to enable the feature that means all new accounts must be approved by me, and change all the forums to be readable only by registered users. a real PITA.
 

dpaanlka

macrumors 601
Nov 16, 2004
4,868
30
Illinois
I've had as of yet no problems with my phpBB board at System 7 Today, which has recently exceeded 1500 posts. Hopefully it continues this way. I haven't updated since 2.19 or whatever it is.
 

KimKnox

macrumors newbie
Oct 1, 2010
10
0
OK
Vbulletin is the best forum software, and it's widely used. And it has excellent support and plugins.
 

manueld

macrumors 6502
Jun 8, 2009
257
3
Thought I'd throw this out there, haven't used it but saw it online the other day: http://simple-press.com/

Simple: Press - the feature rich, completely integrated and fully scalable forum plugin for WordPress.

In case the website you're building also includes a blog.
 
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