Why is your particular choice of forum software the right one for you?
As part of another programming-related question (I assure you), someone suggested that I ask a question on the community wiki asking why your forum software of choice was the "best" for you.
I am in the business of providing forum software as part of a web server setup and web application tailored for a medical support team, and I want to know all the pros and cons for any forum software you have been exposed to.
It should work with Linux and Apache.
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How about PHPBB ? Easily customizable and configurable, and is also automatically imported from previous pbpbb versions (e.g. v2 to v3).
PHPBB 3 also has a very good tracking system, unlike v2. In phpbb2, using captcha when registering, we get about 600 bots per day, registering automatically.
When we upgraded to v3 we had no bots and we still have no registered bots (new forum was deployed about 2 months ago and no bots yet) ... so apparently they improved captcha images ...
I highly recommend it.
Btw, this is Open Source and written in PHP (duh!). It also has a wide community, with a huge variety of downloadable themes and styles.
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My first recommendation is the Invision Power Board. I tried some open source software like PHPBB and SimpleMachines, they work well enough, but since they are not commercially supported, you cannot quickly fix any board issues if you run into them. One of the main features that I liked about IPB is also their flexible user permission system. Difficult to describe, but mostly based on permission masks. You can create groups that use one or more masks, and each member can belong to one or more groups. If that's not enough, you can also specify permission masks that the person can use for each person. Of course, if you don't need that kind of flexibility,you can just use the default base groups. IBP is not free, though, and for some it can be considered quite costly.
I got a lifetime and perpetual license when they had them, which guarantees lifetime updates and support. Well worth the money.
Another solution I can recommend is ExpressionEngine from EllisLabs. EE is an extensible Content Management that allows you to get addon modules at affordable prices. One of these official additions is the forum module. With one forum license, you can already create multiple instances of forums. You will be able to customize your main site with the main body of the CMS and create your forum around it and you can share your login / membership if you want. Another system that I recommend.
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FoFou is my favorite forum software because it allows people to post questions and answers.
A visitor doesn't have to register, fill out a bunch of preferences, and check their email before they can leave a comment. FoFou doesn't force them to do this. Fo rums Fo r Yo u was designed for sites that host open source software, so it's all about rewarding users who can only visit once or twice to submit reviews and answer other questions. FoFou provides all the functionality of a slick forum, no messy calls and whistles.
FoFou is open source, highly customizable and uses the Google App engine, so you can either host it yourself or use Google's free cloud hosting.
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