What's the best forum software?

[tattoo]

Was wondering from different perspectives like SEO and so forth, what's worked best for you guys?

Thanks

 

[Olly]

I have used pretty much every forum software and definitely like vBulletin the most by a lot. The only reason I'm not using it on my forum (in my sig) is because I told myself I wouldn't buy anymore licenses until my forum had a good amount of members, activity etc and then convert it later on. Tt comes with a load of good features, for SEO there's vBSEO which is paid, or there are free alternatives too, and check out vBulletin.org for the mods/styles. That to me makes the money spent much more than well spent.

That's just my opinion obviously, everyone will have different tastes.

I recommend checking out AdminFusion.com - They have demos for the main forum softwares where you can log in as a user or an admin and test it out as if it was your own forum.

 

[Atlas]

Most of the forum software offers SEO friendly options, but overall vBulletin is the best in my opinion. The only problem it is not free like many of the other ones

 

[MaestroDelWeb]

My opinion is also VBulletin. I maintain a few licenses (some of them unused at times). Look at most of the good big forums, they're usually on VBulletin. The options are great although the 3.7 series is a little more daunting of a task (for initial setup) than everything under it, but you get use to it. For free software I've always been a fan of phpBB because of it's simplicity and great skins.

If you want free go for phpBB, MyBB, SMF. If you want paid go for VBulletin, although I have an IPB license and installed it and it's actually not that bad.

As an honorable mention there are a lot of smaller forums and a few that I've seen have features built in that the big boys don't have. Depending on the most important feature for you, try googling "(feature) forum" and you might be surprised that you find a forum you've never heard of that has the feature you want pre-built into it.

 

[Olly]

I forgot to say that for free software I would only use MyBB now (Using it on the forum in my sig if you wanna check it out). It's pretty similar to vBulletin but not quite as good. There are nowhere near as many mods/styles for it but customization is pretty easy and it's easy to use.

 

[loclhero]

My limited experience would be with Vbulletin hands down. On the flip side, I hated phpBB

 

[tattoo]

thanks for the good information guys. i suppose punbb, vanilla, bbpress don't make the cut? how about drupal with forum module?

i'd like something where it would be easy to insert ads (like between posts) and that are designed with SEO in mind. web standards would be a plus...

 

[lackote]

i have tested ph*pBB Invi*sion and VBul*letin, in my opinion VB*ulletin is the best

for seo you can install the Zoin**ts plugin (free) or VBS**EO (paid but butter) you can find all kind of hacks and plugins for vbull*etin at h**p://vb**ulletin.org