1- Simple Machines Forum (SMF)
One of the leading forum software. It has a lot of neat features. SMF Team has released a beta version about a month ago. There are a lot of changes from its previous version 1.1.4, Soon they will be releasing a stable version for SMF 2.0. SMF offers wide range of add-ons and themes that you can download from their site. There is also a mod called “tinyportal” which gives you the option to make a portal out of your SMF Forum.
2 - PHP Bulletin Board (PHPBB)
One of the first PHP and MYSQL driven forum software also the most popular forum software. PHP 2.0 was big success and it’s been around the web for long time. But time has done its job. A lot of people had the chance to use this software at least once in their web experience. As time went by, a lot of bots were developed and started to spam boards all over web. After a year of waiting, PHPBB team released its latest version PHPBB3. They made a lot of changes and some still claims that new Admin Panel is hard to manage it. But still, it’s great software.
3 - MYBB
MyBB is another software that has been receiving good reviews from a lot of people. It provides some good features beside its wide range of themes and modifications. MYBB community growing fast. Detailed stats are available at the site. MYBB has been around for sometime now. MYBB developers started XMB. They left and started MYBB. They are certainly in the race with larger systems like PHPBB.
4 - Extreme Message Board (XMB)
XMB team has been lost after its team left working for this project. Some took over and tried to continue and but never got on the road. I have used one of their last version. Product they provide is not bad. Unlike many others, It’s easy to edit. For instance, their theme is very user friendly and file free. However, XMB team has been little slow fixing their security holes. There are some known bugs need to be fixed.
This is my top four, I have used all of them for some time and I still use SMF for my other website. Also, I have been reading reviews on other free forum softwares. Phorum is one of the software I look forward to use.
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