Which Forum software is best?

[rocklee0891]

I think Invision Power's good, I mean the payed for one, it has a lot of nice features... but they're right vBulletin does seem to be the best so far, and I've seen Invision Power get hacked a few times.

[borninblood]

My vote is for phpBB - always used it, plenty of mods available for it and easy to install and maintain.

[247h]

Originally Posted by cii-tech

...I installed yabb which was in fantastico. And also can i upgrade it so the Topics and members dont get affected?

Doesn't seem as though anyone answered your 2nd question — there are conversion utilities from YABB versions to phpBB (see HERE for the appropriate board in the phpBB Forum).

But whilst I have the chance I'd like to add that you should also try converting to SMF (see HERE for the appropriate board in the SMF Community Forum or HERE for other forum conversions to SMF) — you may just find that you prefer it to phpBB and in my experience it's far less prone to being hacked or needing patches every 5 minutes!

You can install either software from Fantastico, back up your YABB database then apply the conversion routines — I suggest you read a variety of messages in both those forums I provided links to, then you can see what problems people have faced and familiarise yourself with the pitfalls and procedures. Good luck ...

[fgames1]

my friend just bought invision i think is far the best number one forum bulletion in the planet

[DPS Computing]

I'm going with phpBB - it seems by far the best. In the past I've had problems with invision forums and there has been a lot of unsatisfactory security problems with it according to the press and computing website hostings.

[Olie]

vBulletin is the daddy of all forum software! I've been using it for years, there's excellent support and a wide community. There's loads of skins and mods out there and although it's paid for, it shows in the quality of the product.

[Brian]

Dont you have to pay for invision ? I had it years ago and it went subscription so i havent looked at it since. I use PHPBB3 now and applied my technique for 0 spam.

[DPS Computing]

I agree vBulletin looks very good and is very nice to use. But for the freebies it has to be phpBB.

If I had a thriving forum I would definitely consider purchasing vBulletin as I like using it.

[Olie]

Originally Posted by DPS Computing

I agree vBulletin looks very good and is very nice to use. But for the freebies it has to be phpBB.

If I had a thriving forum I would definitely consider purchasing vBulletin as I like using it.

Yes, I think phpBB has improved alot and is one of the best free pieces of forum software. If I were starting a new forum I would probably start with phpBB and when it built up in size migrate to vBulletin.

[Peter]

I think vBulletin is worth the money you pay, but it's not easy building a forum, so you might want to make sure that you can do it before outlaying the money. If you go with phpBB, you can always upgrade to vBulletin later.

[Mohsen32]

Fully featured & secured forum is vBulletin. (installed in this forum).
vbulletin.com/

[gordo]

mybb and smf are two of the best free ones... have installed them both and have one running now. I also use a paid for invision. but have installed and tried many.

[DPS Computing]

Originally Posted by gordo

mybb and smf are two of the best free ones... have installed them both and have one running now. I also use a paid for invision. but have installed and tried many.

Also, the fact SMF can be installed through Fantastico (on Linux) greatly helps its user numbers as a lot of people like the easy installation that Fantastico provides.