Software for New Forums

While we give people time to fill out the admin application Shredder posted, I thought it might be a good idea to have a poll to help narrow down which software we will be using for the new forum. Originally, I was going to leave the decision of which forum software to use entirely up to the new admin, but I thought it wouldn't hurt if the other forum members helped out by sharing their opinions. The final decision will still be up to the admin, so this is just meant as a guide to help judge which solution would work best.

Listed below are some choices for free forum software that would work on our server and would have similar feature sets to the software we're using now, WBB2. I narrowed down the possibilities by removing ones that are a little too basic for us (such as Vanilla or bbPress), are seemingly no longer supported (such as WBB Lite or tForum), or have had an excessive history of security problems (such as phpBB or MyBB).

In no particular order:
FUDforum
mwForum
E-Blah
DeluxeBB
IceBB
OvBB
NextBBS
PunBB
Quicksilver Forums
SMF
Viscacha

Each of the links will take you directly to the support forums for each software package, so please take a look and let us know which one you like the best by voting in the poll and replying here. When looking through the choices, please pay more attention to the functionality and features than the graphics and colors, since the latter can easily be changed. If you know of some software that isn't listed here, you're welcome to vote for Other and suggest it in the thread.

For a more detailed view of some of the features, see the following links:
Comparison of Internet forum software (PHP)
Comparison of Internet forum software (Other)
ForumMatrix

The admin is also welcome to purchase a license for a non-free forum software package such as vBulletin, UBB.threads, WBB, or IPB. I haven't listed those here since we can't predict whether or not the admin would want to do that because we haven't chosen one yet. Just letting everyone know that it's still an option, though.

There's actually a wikipedia page that has a feature comparison. Let me fetch it...

I kind of like the DeluxeBBS and the NextBBS. =] Viscacha isn't too bad either.

So those are the three I like. They all look great with whatever skin they have, the forums look nice. I particularly like DeluxeBBS.

Later days,
harshfire

You're not supposed to rate based on skin.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_..._software_(PHP)

Perhaps paste that into your post Krang?

Yep, that was one of the pages I used to get a list of current software, along with ForumMatrix and my own personal experience (since forum software has always been an interest of mine). Thanks, I'll add those links.

Though Quicksilver looks nice, NextBBS looks like the best choice, to be honest.

I kinda prefer E-Blah, but SMF and NextBBS seem good as well.

As much as Perl forums fundamentally make me gnash my teeth and draw blood (bad former experience, I know Perl is actually pretty great if used correctly), Finale has a point.

While I've only used Invision Power and my input won't mean much here, NextBBS looks like the best out of that list.

quote:

Originally posted by X Prime As much as Perl forums fundamentally make me gnash my teeth and draw blood (bad former experience, I know Perl is actually pretty great if used correctly), Finale has a point.

Just out of curiosity, which Perl forum software did you have a bad experience with?

I think it was YaBB, way, way, way back in like... 2002? 2003? Rargh.

quote:

Originally posted by X Prime I think it was YaBB, way, way, way back in like... 2002? 2003? Rargh.

Oh, I almost forgot about YaBB. I've never been a fan of it, and it doesn't seem to be very well coded, so I can understand the frustration.

Upon further inspection and consideration, I voted for E-blah.

Seems to be by far the most functional and with things relevant to our interests.

E-blah looks interesting, but NextBBS also seems a nice choice...minus that annoying chat feature.

We will be choosing the new admin soon, and one of the first decisions that the admin will need to make is the forum software, so any last minute votes and opinions would be appreciated. All you need to do is take a quick look at the options and decide which one has the features and layout you like the best (not counting graphics and colors, since those will probably be changed), then vote on the poll. It would also help out if you posted your reasons for your choice in the thread, but it's not required.