Which Is The Best Forum Software?

[xmthb 0]

I'm eagarly awaiting your responses

[TheDisturbedOne 1]

Awaiting our responses? There are tons of posts that explain which forum software the members here like. What exaclty more are you looking for? Additionally there is an article on wikipedia comparing the different software somewhere.

[mahesh2k 0]

AEF is getting popular, even i'm hearing a lot about it everyday. I'm just curious about it's themes and Mods. if professional forum themes are there then i guess plenty of IPB/VB people might get attracted to it. I mean VB/IPB is aid and people can't afford more skinning to it, so if any free forum software is available with professional themes then i guess many people might switch to either AEF/SMF.

I heard that SMF 2.0 RC2 is much improved and themes are easy to create than earlier versions. i want to know more from theme makers about how easy is to create on SMF2.

Meanwhile if anyone wants to check the comparison on forum software then ForumMatrix is the best place to do so. Wikipedia also has the comparison article but i prefer forummatrix comparison chart.

[TheDisturbedOne 1]

I looked at the demo, and I really like it. The theme is much better than SMF's default (though I may retract that comment when Curve comes out).I personally like the way that themes were coded in SMF 1.1. There were only a few necessary files, and all the css was in one file. There are many more css files in 2.0, which make it a lot more confusing. There are some good themes out, but there are lack of themes in general.One thing I didn't like was that all MODs had to be manually coded, instead of in SMF where you can just upload a package. The community seems to be good with creating MODs, but as with themes, there seems to be a lack in MODs.I may look into coding with them, or themeing. There seems to be a small community there, and anything I can do to help them out would be beneficial, especially since there aren't that many people using it.

[100janovski 0]

If you ask me i would say vBulletin without thinking. The best, easiest, compactest and many many other features.

[TheDisturbedOne 1]

What makes you say that? Specifics please.

[mahesh2k 0]

IPB ? hmm, it is good cause it is paid,we can ask for better and immediate support cause we paid for it. And their support,themes,learning curve is what makes it worthy paid software. But hey, if we had money at first place we didn't even think about free hosting here or discuss free forum software here, right ? IPB/VB are paid software and get most out of your money. On point of SMF themes, too many css is like OOP approach i guess . lol. but if the current theme of SMF is better than SMF 1.x branch then definitely it'll be in favor of it. As far as community is concerned i do have account over there and i asked few questions but staff over there or other members rarely answers. i guess members and staff are tired of newbie/intermediate questions ?but still atleast some things are not covered in SMF docs. so what's wrong if people ask questions related to MODs, SEO. isn't it ? Coming to AEF,The downside of AEF is right now it is not included in Free-installer of most of the hosting control panels. cpanel/helm have phpbb or SMF, but no major host offers AEF. if any let me know. BTW i was planning to create new thread for the MODs suggestion for every forum software. and wanted to know ideas of other members which forum and mods respective to that forum they use, is it good idea for thread ?i don't know how many on Xisto will answer. but atleast 10 people answer that will be enough data shared on thread. what you think ?

[Nameless_ 1]

rpgsearcherz, what makes you say that Simple Machines Forum doesn't have a lot of features? The 2.0 version of SMF has many features that aren't default in any other software. Such as Karma and Paid Subscriptions. SMF has a great modification manager, which most of the time makes it so that when installing MODs, you don't have to touch the code, even when you have custom themes. PhpBB makes you manually edit EVERYTHING, which can take a lot of time, especially with more advanced MODs.
SMF has some pretty crappy themes, and a ton of them are just minor changes to the default theme. However themes from tinyportal and DzinerStudio are really good, and I use them. DzinerStudio has a theme club, which allows you access to all the paid themes, and support for them.

The only thing that doesn't come default with SMF that should is SEO URLs. The URLs end with either index.php?topic=x or /topic,x.html, which isn't that good for SEO. There is a package that you can run that changes the URLs to /general-discussion/random-topic/, though there are a few bugs in it.

phpBB, I would stay far away from, as there are major holes in it that never get patched.

vB I would give a try, but it is paid, and it doesn't seem very user friendly to me. Many MODs and Themes for vB are paid, so expect to be paying $250+ for the license, MODs and custom theme. I must say that the (default) layout of vBulletin is by far the best out there, but the default theme is terrible. I use a ported vB skin for my SMF, and the layout looks perfect (at least to me).

MyBB, I have only been a user on, never an admin. But still it seems very basic to me, and all MyBBs look the same to me, as there aren't that many themes that I have seen that are "advanced".

I don't know... if you have seen rpgsearchez sites, I think phpBB works out quite well... but that's based on appearances, not forums or softwares knowledge. And I don't really know... your comments seem to stand out and be the opposite of what most members say.

Most said that Simple Machines Forums (SMF) are good, but you say the contrary. Maybe it's just because you use the paid forums... but I'm looking for free ones, not paid.

[TheDisturbedOne 1]

I was talking to the vBulletin guy ;)As for support on the SMF forums, I help out with that (around 900-1000 posts related to providing support there). There are many tools that we use to make sure that all questions get an answer. Just make sure to bump your thread every 24 hours.I'd be up for a MOD thread. I'll post my dreams

[Nameless_ 1]

Yeah, it's a great forum... I'm thinking of either phpBB or SMF myself, but I'll get on to that later.Usually if I reply to my threads with new questions (I have a lot, if you have read my threads), they will most likely get replied by someone helpful (who isn't here?) and I will understand more on this world of website building.

[TheDisturbedOne 1]

Nameless_, I didn't even see your post before mine lol. I am not saying that SMF is terrible, I am saying just the opposite. I think that SMF is great, but there are a lot of themes on there that I think are terrible. People spend ten minutes changing pictures or CSS and consider it a brand new theme.

I use SMF for all but one of my sites (that site was started long before I knew what SMF was). The two in my sig and http://southlandforum.com/ (which I admin, but do not own). The themes I have on my sites are the best out there.

If you have any questions about forum software (or a list of questions), post them here and I'll try my best to answer it.

[Nameless_ 1]

Nameless_, I didn't even see your post before mine lol. I am not saying that SMF is terrible, I am saying just the opposite. I think that SMF is great, but there are a lot of themes on there that I think are terrible. People spend ten minutes changing pictures or CSS and consider it a brand new theme.
I use SMF for all but one of my sites (that site was started long before I knew what SMF was). The two in my sig and http://southlandforum.com/ (which I admin, but do not own). The themes I have on my sites are the best out there.

If you have any questions about forum software (or a list of questions), post them here and I'll try my best to answer it.

Sorry for the misunderstanding... :-/
Didn't mean for that to happen... Yeah, I agree that the themes are terrible. Most people don't even bother changing the default theme and it just looks so different from the one that you came from (the actual main website itself). I will only be putting on forums if my site turns out to be popular. After all, I don't want an empty forum with only me posting on it occasionally, as people will look back and go: "Wow... this site was built like, 3 years ago and only the admin posted... haha, what a failure!" and walk away (or literally, browse away).

But yeah, I'll keep your offer in mind and I'll ask you questions should I ever want to get a forum on my site and have some things and stuff that I need help on.

[mahesh2k 0]

@Nameless_, why you think default SMF theme is bad ? i think it is way better than PhpBB and VB theme. clearly laid out and many people are not even changing it at all. sites like codeblocks forums, smfads are keeping default theme. i mean seriously only IPB themes look professional else most of the themes made for forums are either dark or some fancy girly/anime style themes. so in my opinion SMF default theme is way better than those themes. @Disturbed one: i'm starting thread for Forum MOD suggestions. let's see how many people respond.