Message Board Software

Me again, twice in one day I know but I just set up the email setting in blogger and wanted to try it, this is a topic I have been contemplating a lot lately and its message board software, with so many packages which is the best, well I have worked on lots of forums and I have had the opportunity to work with a lot of packages.

The free ones

As with most things most people want the free alternative, there is several good packages available, the most popular being PHPBB, now I have to go against the crowd and say I have never really liked the software, it just never felt very good compared to the other packages available, there is also SMF forum software, I like SMF to a point but its so annoying to customize but that's just me, I like to be able to play with the software and feel like I am unlikely to mess something up completely. Finally in the free software list MYBB, great software, I was originally going to use it for the club but because I had added several modifications it caused issues moving the database when we changed servers and I had always planned to move to VBulletin at some point and wanted to start with a fresh database so we decided to go with SMF.


The none free ones

I know message board software can seem expensive especially if you don't see your website having a lot of longevity however I suggest if you do take the chance get the lifetime license its better to always have it than too close a website within a few months then a year later decide to relaunch and no longer have access to the software.

There is two major packages one being IPB and the other VBulletin, the first forum I owned was IPB and I loved the software but the free host I used eventually folded and while I did move the forum to a server using the old IPB software (before it was paid only) and as it quickly went from a free program with an optional re-branding and support package I had to decide what I wanted to do with the forum and at the time a friend and another friend were discussing opening a new forum where we combined all out forums into one and I liked the idea as it would have been a VBulletin forum at which point I hadn't had much experience with VBulletin and this was the first licensed package I used so I had the option of installing hacks (back when they meant editing code not just a file upload) and since switching to VBulletin I have never looked back, VBulletin is without a doubt the best package available, it can easily become load intensive (especially if you have a lot of hacks) and it has a query for every little thing and around 1000 options you will never use but its like a super car, there expensive to buy and to run, theres plenty of cheaper options, it eats up resources but it looks great and you feel great owning one because VBulletin is the best package around and if you use anything else people just wonder why couldn't they have VBulletin.

So in summary, avoid the cheap option, get VBulletin (do it legally, there supposed to be sharks when it comes to illegal copies) and be happy.

Sites to check out:

Rampant Designs Baby Seal Productions Stick Guy The Club BSP Blog Stick Guy Blog