FORUMS GUIDE: 70+ Resources for Creating a Forum

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Among the frenzy of MySpace clones, let's not forget good old forum software. Geeks use them for tech support. Businesses use them for collaboration. Here's our take on 70+ forum engines, hosts, and tools.

Forum Engines (Free Software)

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Advanced Electron Forum - Easy to use PHP forum engine.

aterr - Simple multi-threaded board engine.

bbPress - From the creators of Wordpress and Akismet comes an elegant bulletin board.

Beast - A Rails-based forum written in only 500 lines of code.

Beehive Forum - PHP forum engine with support for mobile browsers.

Blursoft MetaForum - Has a ton of AJAX features, but manages to stay search engine friendly. And yes, the back button does work.

bttlxeForum - Basic ASP board.

Deluxe Portal - All-in-one portal solution.

DeluxeBB - Speedy engine with database optimization and GZIP compression.

dnfBB - 3-tier C# forum that works with Firebird and MySQL.

E-Blah - Basic BBS with Akismet spam protection.

Elite Bulletin Board - Light and customizable board.

eXtreme Message Board (XMB) - On the outside, it appears to be a basic forum engine. Until you download the mods for it.

IceBB - Beautiful board with feeds, calendars, and much more.

Ikonboard - Popular forum software. Unique in that it can use both a database or a flat file as a backend.

JForum - Great board with karma, phpBB migration, and search-friendly URLs.

MegaBBS - Fully featured ASP board engine. Note: only free for personal use.

miniBB - Minimalistic board powered by PHP.

mvnForum - Powerful JSP board under the GPL.

mwForum - Great Perl forum with a wonderful look.

MyBB - Plugins and an easy-to-use admin system make MyBB a keeper.

MyTopix - Great forum with a unique design.

nextBBS - Popular board with a ton of features and integration with Mediawiki, Coppermine, and Zoints.

Orca - Nice forum engine with tools like a live post tracker and a WYSIWYG editor.

OvBB - Lightweight vBulletin clone.

Phorum - Popular forum engine that powers boards like the MySQL forum.

phpBB - The granddaddy of Internet forums, phpBB sports a modular design for the control panels, support for almost any kind of database, and a host of plugins. No wonder it won the SourceForge Community Choice Awards' Best Project for Communications.

Pocoo - Never heard of a Python-powered board? Neither did I, until I found Pocoo. It's WSGI compatible, and has an advanced plugin system.

PunBB - With XHTML-compliant pages, simplicity, and speed, what's not to like?

Quicksilver Forums (QSF) - Based on the now dead MercuryBoard, QSF has grown into a mature engine sporting features such as 3D permissions or skinning.

RForum - Strong forum with mailing list integration, powered by Ruby.

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Simple Machines Forum (SMF) - Originally a fork of YaBB SE, SMF features WYSIWYG, powerful groups, and much more. Note: there is some dispute about whether SMF is free software or not, since you are not allowed to redistribute the forum/software itself without written permission.

Snitz - Basic ASP forum.

txtForum - Tiny forum that stores its information in TXT files instead of a database.

Unclassified NewsBoard Forum (UNB) - Easy to use forum engine with Jabber notification.

UseBB - Lightweight, clear, and efficient board package.

Vanilla - Terrific AJAXified forum with a really nice look you won't find anywhere else.

Vikingboard - Minimalistic board engine for high performance.

Viscacha - Board with integrated CMS and conversion from CuteCast, Vision Board, phpBB, and WBB.

YaBB - Easy to install and easy to use, YaBB is more than yet another bulletin board.

Yazd - Basic forum engine under the Apache license.

Forum Engines (Commercial)

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AspNetForum - Clean and powerful ASP.NET forum engine. $85-$169.

Burning Board - Easy to set up board that will import existing Invision Power Board, MyBB, phpBB, PunBB, Simple Machines Forum, or vBulletin forums. $139.99-$269.99.

FuseTalk - Powerful forum software used by big-names such as Adobe, Boeing, NASA, NBC, US Airforce, McAfee and Lonely Planet. But the names will cost you. $649-$4599.

FusionBB - Calendar, photo gallery, PayPal, article templates, and much more are available with this great piece of software. $425 flat fee or $149 flat fee and $39/year.

Ideal BB - ASP/COM board with a nice revision feature. $299-$2099.

Invision Power Board (IPB) - One of the most popular commercial boards of all time. $149.99-$299.99.

Jive Forums - Powerful board used by companies such as EA and ESPN. Unfortunately, very expensive. $14950 flat fee, $1950/1000 users, $4950/5000 users, or $9950/20000 users.

MyProBB - Powerful anti-spam features makes this one a keeper. It's cheap, too. $25/year.

UBB.threads - $725 flat fee or $229 flat fee and $125/year.

vBulletin - Extremely popular board with tons of features. $160 flat fee or $85/year.

WowBB - WYSIWYG, internationalization, and much more available with this PHP board. $99 flat fee or $55/year.

Forum Hosts

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Blursoft MetaForum - Has a ton of AJAX features, but manages to stay search friendly. And yes, the back button does work. Free.

Conforums - Unlimited categories, boards, and posts with HTML and JavaScript customization. Free.

CuteCast - Basic forum hosting. Free.

GoBoardz - Nice forum with photo sharing and a nice interface. Free.

Hyperboards - A big hosting provider with global login (one Hyperboards account logs you into every Hyperboards forum), skins, pages, and unlimited posts and boards. Free.

Invision Power Board (IPB) - One of the most popular commercial boards of all time. $10-$75/month.

ProBoards - A well known host powered by YaBB. Free.

Sudden Launch - Forum host with unlimited posts, replies, and boards. Free.

WowBB - WYSIWYG, internationalization, and much more available with this PHP board. $99 flat fee and $3.95/month or $7.95/month.

Forum Integration

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bbPress and Wordpress integration - Official howto on integrating the two sister projects.

FireBoard - Joomla component that adds a powerful forum.

Integrating Vanilla and Wordpress - Official guide to integrating the two popular CMSs.

IpbWiki - Connects Invision Power Boards and MediaWiki.

Joomla!Vanilla - Bridge between the Joomla CMS and Vanilla.

Forum Tools

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BBCodeXtra Firefox Extension - Context menu to insert BBCode or (X)HTML. Freeware.

Bulletin Board/Forum Code Converter - About.com offers a simple HTML>BBCode or BBCode>HTML converter in JavaScript. Freeware.

HTML To BB Code Converter - Basic HTML or website>BBCode converter. Open source.

Text Formatting Toolbar Firefox Extension - Formatting toolbar for BBCode, HTML, or Wiki code. Freeware.