Looking to start community forum | Suggest free forum software

[adwaitk007]

Hello There,
I am looking to start a forum for our local community. the community if full of people interested literature.

I am looking for some forum sections like poems, stories, etc and then they will have their own sub forums. The people are of age group 40+ who are not much technical. Currently they are very active on whatsapp. they publish their stuff on whatsapp and discussions happen there. but as whatsapp is not organized, I am thinking to shift them to a forum where the discussions can be structured.

I had used phpbb in past but in 2025 it still looks outdated even though it might be working. I am looking for something modern that these people will opt of this change. something user friendly where they can login using their own FB accounts or Google accounts.

Do you guys suggest any free platform which I can use? As it's community and non-profit work, I am looking for free software.

 

[Dopious]

FluentCommunity maybe, they have a nice free version for WordPress.

 

[LilMosey]

MyBB

 

[Funiki]

MyBB

Good choice. However phpBB3 is a good one too. In fact ranks pretty much faster than myBB without plugins .

 

[harpage]

I am looking for something modern that these people will opt of this change. something user friendly where they can login using their own FB accounts or Google accounts.

Discourse is really good. They're used by all the big platforms.

 

[gr33ng0bl1n]

PHPbb used to be good, now idk if it is there