Forum Software Comparison?

[mattbray]

I am going to be adding a forum to my small-business website and I'm having a hard time figuring out what forum software I should use. Does anyone know of a magazine or website that compares my options for forum software? I would appreciate any help

-Matt

 

[rdowns]

I would have thought Penthouse Forum did but upon further inspection, I was wrong.

Seems to me that vBulletin (powers this site) is the most popular out there. Must be a reason.

 

[mac-convert]

I am going to be adding a forum to my small-business website and I'm having a hard time figuring out what forum software I should use. Does anyone know of a magazine or website that compares my options for forum software? I would appreciate any help

-Matt

Try starting here

If nothing else you will get a good list of what's available.

 

[Dimwhit]

If you're willing to spend money, vBulletin is the best (in my opinion, at least compared to Invision). If you want one for free, I recommend Simple Machines (I'm NOT a fan of phpBB).

 

[tominated]

you could try vanilla or bbpress (really lightweight forums)

 

[MegaMan1311]

I would recommend phpBB3, which is in it's RC7. If you a) don't mind using late RC software or b) can wait until it comes out as gold, I would HIGHLY recommend it. I use it on my own site and it is very good and reliable. It has a good amount of features, but isn't as bloated as software like vBulletin and loads fairly fast.

As for sites to compare them, I do not know.

 

[stndn]

We use smf on our website, and so far it's working just fine.

If you want website that can compare different softwares, try to visit forumMatrix and get some ideas.

Btw, forum matrix also has links to compare other things -)


-stndn.

 

[kainjow]

Seems to me that vBulletin (powers this site) is the most popular out there. Must be a reason.

If you're willing to spend money, vBulletin is the best (in my opinion, at least compared to Invision).

Another vote for vBulletin. I think they are the best all around. I tried using a freebie for a while, but got a few hackers messing things up. Nothing so far with vBulletin (commercial).