Favorite Forum Software

Ravenfreak

VPL Elite Member
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What is your favorite forum software?

For paid software Xenforo is my favorite, in fact I have to say in general it is my favorite software. I originally used to like Invision Power Board better when Xenforo was first released but it's miles better than IPB in my opinion. As for free software Simple Machines has really improved in the last few years and 2.1 is amazing.
 
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What is your favorite forum software?
For paid Xenforo for free Flarum looks like the most promising.
All though SMF is pretty good too.

All though i do miss phpbb and vbulletin from the 2000s 🙁
 
XenForo is my favorite forum software. I’d say it’s one of the best on the market right now, especially with all the add-ons available. The price is also affordable.


vBulletin was great in its early v3 and v4 days, but it hasn’t been the same since Internet Brands took it over. The 2009–2013 era of vBulletin was its peak.




There are still some forums on the internet running vBulletin v4 and older versions, but many probably rely on custom code to stay afloat.



The archive feature on vBulletin was neat, as was the ability to print threads.



As for free forum software, I like SMF (Simple Machines). MyBB isn’t that great, in my opinion.



Invision Community is starting to shape up and become nice software, but it’s quite expensive to use. Flarum is pretty good, as is NodeBB. I’ve been on a few forums that use them, and the interface is sleek and modern.
 
Used a lot over the years, currently it is still Xenforo. Though the one I loved overall is old IPB, at least Jcink's IPB software.
Xenforo is a good one i have seen it in different forums. But there I must agree more, older versions of IPB do have this kind of charm somehow. I also have fond memories of using vBulletin too.
 
Xenforo is a good one i have seen it in different forums. But there I must agree more, older versions of IPB do have this kind of charm somehow. I also have fond memories of using vBulletin too.
Older versions of IPB were nice, but now Invision Community is a lot different. The price of the software is also a lot higher than it was in the past.

Vbulletin was great back in the day. It was my favorite forum software prior to Xenforo. The vBulletin 3 and 4 days were great. It had a built in archive feature and printable threads. There are still some forums online today that are still actively using vBulletin 3 and 4.
 
Among the open source, I like SMF, for premium software, my choice is Xenforo.
The new upcoming version that Xenforo is working on is really starting to look good as well. I can't wait to see it in action once it's released! They should have it ready for beta in the next few months.

Nodebb and Discourse are also open source software, but I've only used their software as a user. It's nice that both of them are connected to the fediverse though. I hope Xenforo does the same soon.