No money, forced to use free software - which one do you chose?

Discussion in 'Community Forum Software' started by cpvr, Nov 9, 2011.

  1. cpvr

    cpvr Regular Member

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    So, let's say you were in the process of making a new forum, but you don't have any money to buy paid forum software - so you have to chose from free software, which one do you chose and why?
     
  2. Brandon

    Brandon Regular Member

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    I'd go with phpbb, no doubt about it.
    That's what I started with oh so many years ago. :)
     
  3. Cerberus

    Cerberus Admin Talk Staff

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    I agree though phpbb has so many exploits out there.. It is obviously the best but it gains a lot of hacker attention.. I honestly couldnt see trying to start a forum or site with free software. Too many variables and risks in this day and age.. But thats just my opinion
     
  4. Justin S.

    Justin S. Regular Member

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    I don't see why using free forum software is a bad thing? :p As long as it's MyBB, of course.
     
  5. cpvr

    cpvr Regular Member

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    I've heard good things about MyBB - do you mind telling us what it offers over the other forum software?
     
  6. Creaky

    Creaky Regular Member

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    Would go with phpBB which I still use on one site. It does seem to be falling behind though
     
  7. Iconic

    Iconic The Original

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    I would probably go with mybb or smf, they are both excellent in my opinion and had little troubles with them.
     
  8. Fiona1964

    Fiona1964 Regular Member

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    I use MyBB and for some one like me it has been so easy to use
    I came to forums late in life
     
  9. Justin S.

    Justin S. Regular Member

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    MyBB has an extensive set of features but they're aren't too complicated, and it has many features that other free forum softwares don't have (like a reputation system, extensive moderation features, and the like). We've done a lot of work to make everything easy to use. :)

    It also has had a fairly consistent release schedule: 1.6 was released exactly 2 years after 1.4 (to the day), 1.4 was released just under 2 years after 1.2, and 1.2 was released less than a year after 1.0. The next release won't necessarily follow that schedule, as it's a complete rewrite (2.0), but 1.6 has also been getting improvements to compensate for the longer time between major versions.

    That said, you should always choose the forum software that works best for you. As with just about anything, it's all a matter of personal opinion - but I definitely don't think anyone should rule out free software just because you don't have to pay an arm and a leg for it. ;)
     
  10. cpvr

    cpvr Regular Member

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    Thanks for the reply @Justin S. I'll keep that in my mind next time if I don't have money for forum software. I've also tried SMF but it wasn't that much to my liking - only to hold me off til I had money for vBulletin.
     

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