What forum software should I use?

Question

This is a general, community wiki catch-all question to address "I need a forum script that does x, y, and z..." questions.

If your question was closed as a duplicate of this question and you feel that the information provided here does not provide a sufficient answer, please open a discussion on the Pro Webmasters Meta.

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I have a list of features that I want for my website's forum script: where can I find a (free or paid) script that includes all of them?

Solution 1

If the question you want to answer is genuinely "Where can I find a CMS/forum that has these features." then CMSmatrix has a search facility that enables selecting from over 1000 CMS by choosing the features you want.

In addition, you may then want to then use opensourcecms.com which allows the trialling of around 350 different popular CMS without installing.

Most of the major CMS have live trial installs to look at without having to do an install yourself.

Solution 2

I like the Xenforo forum software. It's built by these guys who left VBulliten and decided to try and build a cooler forum software. It's sleeker and looks newer. It doesn't have as many extensions seeing as it's only a couple years old. But, Xenforo definitely worth checking out.

Comments

[Admin]

SMF forgotten

[Admin]

@LazyBadger this is a community wiki post: you can edit it and add SMF

[Admin]

I'll leave work of writing "Pro"|"Contra" to anybody

[Admin]

Consider merging your answer with the one above, as your points will get more attention that way. Also, I removed the link to your site: it isn't relevant to this answer.

[Admin]

Drupal Forum/AF is not mentioned.