which one is a good forum or bulletin board software? - Page 1
Forum section: electronics / general

author: Mechatrommer
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 21, 2014, 11:54:14 am
content: i need suggestion on "the best" free or cheap. cheap i mean is somewhere at less than $300 but i may look at $500 if the features are worth it. aim:1) less buggy and less hackable, so members account, info and profile can be kept safer.2) professional look (or customizable) for beginning company that want to sell something.3) can store some "company to user" specific data (managed by admin and viewable by related user) such as software registration code/key or whatever. this is like a company want to help their legitimate users to store specific data, in case the user lost it from their "local" keeping.less important requirement but could give merit:1) simple and easy enough to use like SMF, but powerful and sensible enough like SMF's ability to "mark as read individual thread" or "block individual section"2) database can be transferred or compatible with other forum software to avoid being locked down by the same brand. (not sure if this is a lunacy?)i know i can google but i need to hear 1st or 2nd hand experience and to avoid wrong decision. this is also to give me early picture, but the decision will not be made in near future (or just planning). so there is plenty of time ahead to think... thanks for reading this far...

author: GeoffS
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: January 21, 2014, 12:01:43 pm
content: SMFandphphBBare probably the top (most popular) free bulletin board software.Both are fairly easy to set up and administer and offer a similar set of capabilities.Lots of mods for both but serious customising needs programming skills.vBulletinis the best known commercial bulletin board software. I've never installed this one (not free) so don;t know how it is to administer. Most of the forums I'm a member of, use this one, especially if they site is commercial or has sponsors. Easy to set up advertising.Also has quite a few mod and plugins but most are not free.If I was setting up in a commercial environment, I'd probably go for vBulletin. At about $250 it's within your budget.

author: dexters_lab
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: January 21, 2014, 12:22:21 pm
content: i have used phpbb for many many years, it's very popular which means it's well supported, updated and the community is large so is great for asking questions etc. It's very easy to install and setup if you use it out of the box.a good friend of mine used new install of vbulletin on a new car forum recently, after just a couple of months they had ditched it, apparently it was full of bugs and was hard to administer

author: EEVblog
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: January 21, 2014, 12:27:39 pm
content: I used to use phpBB back in the old days and I liked it, but then they changed the whole admin interface and it was awful, so I went with SMF with this forum.Apart from the lack of plugins for the latest versions, SMF has worked really well. Being able to install and uninstall mods at will is really nice.Install them all and try them is the only way, don't take anyones word for it.

author: Mechatrommer
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 21, 2014, 01:20:46 pm
content: Quote from: EEVblog on January 21, 2014, 12:27:39 pmthe problem is, trying to fully understand a system like father and son needs time and effort. and frankly i'm zero when it comes to setting up a forum software. i'm really keen to SMF, it has features that i like most compared to other forum i'm in, but one thing... can i customize its GUI to make it similar like say phpBB? or more modern appearance? few minutes ago i went to the DipTrace forum and i noticed they use phpBB. and the GUI the flatness of all are acceptable, maybe i'm too often looking at round corner of SMF that made me bored.now the 3 names are too common i guess, SMF, phpBB and vBulletin. but which one has the ability to store user data? setup by admin/company? for example a file that only can be viewed or downloaded by the account holder? this file comes from the admin, not created by user. and 1 more thing i'm too concern with several occasions of eevblog like 504 gateway error, the "penguin has to come in to the rescue" to solve some error etc? its like the safety of SMF is not ensured? the worst and nightmare is the corruption/lost of the user data or database, that i believe cannot be tolerated. or its the same with other forum? i never noticed in other forum, but maybe because i'm nowhere else but here that i missed all the unwanted events in other forums?if vBulletin doesnt have special feature such as storing user data dan bulletproof safety, then i find no reason to pay. "popularity" alone doesnt work well with me, i need practical feature. phpBB is used by a small company DipTrace, and i believe that is good enough. but i dont think there is user data that the company can store for their customers in there (i may be mistaken?)

author: rkupka
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: January 21, 2014, 01:42:44 pm
content: I use IPB Forum (InvisionPowerboard). Basic license is ~$150, includes support, tons of mods available. I ve been using it for years, never got hacked. IPB company releases security fixes quite often. Some big modules are available for $$ (pic gallery, file/download module..)Feature rich, probably overkill for a simple forum, but it has some handy features. (mark post/topic as read, topic notification subscription, rich user profiles, FB/Twitter integration, integrated pic attachment resize...., shoutbox as plugin, SSL support...). Most mods require none to very little programming knowledge, some mods require some HTML/CSS skills though.IPB company hosts demo sites as well, give it a try.

author: Monkeh
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 21, 2014, 01:46:28 pm
content: As a user and admin for some years, I would never choose to use IPB or vBulletin. I find both ugly to work with. SMF or phpBB, personal taste, I find both are quite usable (although phpBB3's admin panel is impressively overcomplicated).Quote from: rkupka on January 21, 2014, 01:42:44 pmThis is not actually a good thing.

author: rkupka
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: January 21, 2014, 02:29:41 pm
content: so, extreme case would be "if they don't release any fixes at all, means their software is bug free and secure" ? haha.Security audit and fixes for bugs found by auditors or community is what I expect from support and software I paid for.Most of the forum software are PHP engines... and if you follow PHP's bugtracker, you must know there are numerous bugfixes everyday... Is that a bad thing ?everything you mentioned is a matter of personal preference. I find IPB admin panel quite easy to work with.So, let OP choose what he likes the most.

author: Mechatrommer
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 21, 2014, 02:47:05 pm
content: thanks all! browsing SMF forum answered some of my question esp the UI, but unfortunately i cant download it i dont know why, got to try again next time. phpBB downloaded successfully, just want to make a quick peep in the code, not a thing that i can understando well.