What forum software do u perfer?
 

Vbulletin
PHPBB
Invision
MINIBB
(OTHER, please state)

I my self perfer to use vbulletin, but they cost money. So if i had to have a free one i would have Invision power boards

I would say no questions asked, hands down vBulletin is the best forum software I have used to date. Its defiantly worth the money if you can afford it.

Vbulletin is the most professional looking and best admin / user friendly forum you can get.

Invision is slowly moving up the ranks although i think its more popular in the far east and more 'cartoon' based forums will suit the layout and structure of invision.

I love vbulletin, but it costs alot. I have coded many hacks for vbulletin.org and i am looking for a job to do with vbulletin

I have used many different flavors of forums out there and so far SMF (Simple Machines Forums) is my favorite. Second would be vBulletin.

I agree. phpBB would be third on the list. Don't forget, SMF is free. ;)

Sense you guys keep bringing up SMF I will point you out to one of the slickest SMF forums out on the net. Its full of custom hacks ect. www.webdigity.com Let me know what you think about it.

hmm, does vBulletin have an RSS feed hack?

It has something in there about rss, I am not sure what it does though. I havent had time to play with it.

vBulletin is the market leader and I have used it / modded it for many years, however now I am writing my own forum software for my portfolio

VBulletin is definately the Forum Software i would use, i also recommend it dearly. Basically because it's easier to use and efficient when managing the place. The buying cost depending on what license you go for, i would easily buy your own license which is now going for $160 without vat (I think they have a special offer on) so its just a one time fee of that, or you could have a yearly license of $90/80 can't remember, which is obviously a lot dearer in the long run.

I purchased a lifetime license quite a few years ago, I tried contacting them a little over a year ago now about adding the update service to my lifetime license and changing some information associated with my account. They never got back to me, even after multiple attempts! Lifetime license huh? Yeah sure!

phpBB rocks. I have used it.

Good show that man, a truely compelling statement of why phpBB rocks, i am overwhelmed with emotion and besotted with your excellent arguement .... :p

I have used hemoroid cream, it doesnt mean that it rocks :p

QBall15j: Their CS is normally quite good, try posting on the forums and see if you get a response

did you pay for that? i can't remember if you had to or not. Something like $30 a year for updates etc...?

I'm using IPB 2.0 for my site www.4soccer.org

But I much prefer phpbb, it's much easier to add scripts.

I would definately chose vBulletin if i could afford it unfortunately I can't so i had been useing myfreeforum/

Yeah it's so expensive. It's crazy to pay 300$ for a forum sowtware tougth!

I like Invision but they're usually for the bigger sites. I'm using MyBB for my new site WebTalk UK. I think vBulletin is good but it's too expensive for some teenage web designers like myself.

I don't think their is anything wrong with using free forum software. Matter of fact I have seen some really big forums that run on free forum software. www.pwctoday.com just switched to vBulletin but before that they were running phpBB and their member count is 16,000+. Free forums can go a long way, its the mods and admin that makes a good forum. Not the software. Anyway good luck on your website.:)

Thanks I opened it just over a week ago. From what I remember, the internets biggest forum is a PHPBB forum.

I used to love Invision, but I have sort of lost my interest in it after experiencing what phpBB can do if modded and skinned well. Some people look down on it, because it is free, but it has loads of potential. Another forum that is incredibly easy to code is PunBB, but skinning is a bit more difficult on that one.

Well, I let my first year run out since my forum didn't go anywhere, I was going to launch another site using that license but couldn't get the latest version since I didn't have the update subscription on my account. So then of course I tried contacting support but didn't get anywhere. I might try again sometime.

My forum uses vBulletin, and I find vB to be the best forum software.

I run my forum with vB 3.5.3 and I love it. Not many complaints about it, very good software overall.

I have worked with phpBB. It has worked fine for me.

thats the thing though, all of them work fine, because they are all tested but its functionality, usability and user-friendliness that wins it for me with vbulleting, the admincp offers a hell of alot of functions, in depth template modification and most of all it looks professional from stock

I started on the lowest of the low, proboards, moved to phpbb and then to IPB and i work with VB, but for me IPB is the best and easist to work with.

I prefer to use SMF because of its simplicity to modify.

i am curently using IPB 2 and i think its great

I used to like SMF until it failed on me and I asked my questions on their support forums and never got help, so then I switched to PHPBB since then in the future if I want it can easily be upgraded to vb.

My favorite would have to be IPB

Well i use vb atm but ipb is pretty good but i prefer vb now :)

My personal choice Vbulletin
I did swear by IPB for some years and 4 months since decided to go with Vbulletin and now will never look back it rocks and the mods are endless :)
So my 0.02 VB

My favourite has to be PHPBB, it's free and powerful. I've never had any problmes with it.My favourite has to be PHPBB, it's free and powerful. I've never had any problems with it.

I am a phpBB user. I love to change everything there (install mods and modify the theme beyond comparison). I run 4 phpBBs and they are all different. I install what I need for a certain community and the theme modifying options are awesome for someone who likes to redesign a lot of the themes.

dojo, I personally have seen your work. And I am very impressed, if you took out the powered by phpBB on your forums. I would not be able to tell the forum software. I only hope one day I can code as well as you. ;)

Are they all yours or you're managing (three of) them for other people?

I just use phpBB. Key thing to me is the cost. I hear and read that vB is the best, and I believe that, but I cannot find a compelling reason why I should spend money to get vB. BBS is one of tools for me to make money, and there ought to be a good financial reason why I should use vB. That said, all my boards are rather small, so maybe that's why I don't need vB right now.

Yea same hear the cost of vb is steep for me as well. Plus I just install the mods on phpbb and it works well. Also my sites are small too. Plus SMF Now just seems more complex than phpbb. I have used PHPBB for a couple of weeks now and don't see my self going back to SMF.

Thank you for the nice comments :)

The forums I am talking about are my own. I pay for them, I run them. it's not that hard. Working with the tpl files is a breeze. I just have to design the headers as I want them in Photoshop, slice and code as a normal html page. Cut the code I need and change some bits of code. Overall_header.tpl is the file I work on the most. And the hacks are so easy to install. There are great explanations in the readme files, so even I can install them :)

I used several phpBB mods, and yes, they were generally well-documented. Also there is a unified framework for phpBB mod documentation, so it generally gets easier and easier as you work on more mods.