# Best forum software.....



## Wozzer (Sep 10, 2011)

Hello all,

I was just wondering what everyone's views are on different forum software....

I'm looking into both the administration and user side.


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## Altered (Sep 10, 2011)

Cost plays a part in that decision so I cannot say 100%. 
My opinion is...
If cost is not a factor VB, if cost is a factor then PHPBB would be my choices. 
Both work fine and once you use either for a decent amount of time they become pretty user friendly from administration and the user side. IMO


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## stinger608 (Sep 10, 2011)

As Altered stated, if cost is not an issue, then VB I think hands down. PHPBB is good however I think that it has the spam problems real bad. One has to carefully set up the membership area to keep the spam bots out. 

Again, Simplemachines is pretty good overall, however it really, really has spam issues. One has to be sure to set up the member creation to be finalized and activated by the admin.


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## Kreij (Sep 10, 2011)

Regardless of what software you choose, you are going to have to customize it to fit your needs.
W1zz has written a ton of stuff to facilitate things like easier to use navigation, spam detection and prevention and so forth.

I do believe that vBulletin is considered one of the best.

If you are feeling real ambitious, you could write your own forum software.


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## Altered (Sep 11, 2011)

stinger608 said:


> As Altered stated, if cost is not an issue, then VB I think hands down. PHPBB is good however I think that it has the spam problems real bad. One has to carefully set up the membership area to keep the spam bots out.
> 
> Again, Simplemachines is pretty good overall, however it really, really has spam issues. One has to be sure to set up the member creation to be finalized and activated by the admin.



I have run a PHPBB board for 3 years and spam is not an issue like it was in years past. The main key is setting up your countermeasure properly. There are quite a few types you can install but the method I listed below has stopped my spam cold. Where some of the others did well they were a pain for the new registering member to read. 

In the ACP under the *general tab* select *spambot countermeasure* . There about mid page a section titled *Available plugins* is where you can set this. Under the *Installed plugins* dropdown select *Q&A*. This Q&A plugin is installed with the PHPBB3 software so it saves time there as well. Then under that go to *Configure plugins* click the _configure button_. There you can make any question you want. However do not make any question. Type a line that reads like  *Type 7d8#9Vds&WNqOL in the box *. Then set the answer to be *7d8#9Vds&WNqOL* or what ever you told the new registering member to type. You can make the pass code as long or short as you want. You can also make several different lines of pass codes (I do I have 3 to 5 Q&A). It will random select these as new potential members or spam bots try to join the site. So simple but extremely effective.


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## Completely Bonkers (Sep 11, 2011)

vBulletin is good, but is, IMO, overpriced for the level of service, support, and development/progress they are making. The customer service and product development is relatively immature given the age of the company/software.  If I were starting from scratch, and didnt already have vB, then I would go with Invision or Xenforo.  

I recommend you check out both IB and xenforo, and also search for forums that are using these, and see what they look like.


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## micropage7 (Sep 11, 2011)

you should write: vBulletin
i dunno whats best but so far most forum that visit use vBulletin


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## Jstn7477 (Sep 12, 2011)

vBulletin if you have $195 for the license. 

Other than that, I run a Simple Machines board for my gaming community, and spam was a major problem until I installed KeyCAPTCHA, which makes users assemble simple puzzles that are decrypted by the KeyCAPTCHA server to make sure the user is not a bot.


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## Thrackan (Sep 12, 2011)

*Invision Power*

IMHO, the hobbyist who thinks he has something good going but doesn't.

I've "had" an invision board before, and haven't been pleased with it. Administration was too bloated, and it's got spammer problems. Also, I haven't seen a single well working IPB skin ever.

*vBulletin*

The pro of the boards section.

All forums I like navigating through seem to use vB. And for good reason. 200 bucks for a software license is nothing if you plan on actually getting a well-used forum. Seems low on the spammer problems list.

*PHPBB*

For the free software purist.

PHPBB is versatile and open source, making it easy to gain absolute control over your forums if you like working on code. Unfortunately it's also pretty spammed, but some good account registration control should fix most of that. I'd use PHPBB for any free or small-scale forum.

*Vanillaforums*
*SimpleMachines*

Not familiar with them.


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## Sasqui (Sep 12, 2011)

Kreij said:


> Regardless of what software you choose, you are going to have to customize it to fit your needs.
> W1zz has written a ton of stuff to facilitate things like easier to use navigation, spam detection and prevention and so forth.
> 
> I do believe that vBulletin is considered one of the best.
> ...



Guess I'll be the one to ask... is TPU built on vBulletin?


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## qubit (Sep 12, 2011)

Sasqui said:


> Guess I'll be the one to ask... is TPU built on vBulletin?



Yes - scroll down to the bottom of any page.


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## W1zzard (Sep 12, 2011)

spam will be a problem on any forum. you really must have a captcha for registration and some kind of spam filter like akismet. even then you will still get spammers that manually register and post customized spam


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## qubit (Sep 12, 2011)

W1zzard said:


> spam will be a problem on any forum. you really must have a captcha for registration and some kind of spam filter like akismet. *even then you will still get spammers that manually register and post customized spam*



Yeah there's nothing that drags a forum down more than this kind of spam. I'm glad to say that our mods do such a great job that I only ever see it on TPU once in a blue moon.


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## Thrackan (Sep 12, 2011)

qubit said:


> Yeah there's nothing that drags a forum down more than this kind of spam. I'm glad to say that our mods do such a great job that I only ever see it on TPU once in a blue moon.



And when you see (and report) it it's usually gone in minutes.


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## Sasqui (Sep 12, 2011)

qubit said:


> Yes - scroll down to the bottom of any page.



LOL, thx.


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## qubit (Sep 12, 2011)

I posted Other, because I don't really know which is the best forum software. What I do know is that there are a few features implemented on this forum which are important to me, such as the mini stats on the left of every post - I look at all of them and the thanks button. I miss not having a full-on WYSIWYG post editor though and I know the latest version of vB has it.

Here's a couple of forum review sites to help you decide:

www.forummatrix.org

www.forum-software.org


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