Forum software
 

I would like to set up a forum on a website but I have no experience with this. Is a forum something that can be programmed or is it easier to use somekind of forum software. This forum is one of the best I have seen. It is easily navigated and uses great GUI's.

This forum runs on a software called VBulletin. IIRC, it is not a free piece of software. It is, however, a good one. It handles this site very well, and this is a pretty large forum.

There is another piece of software that I have seen called PHPBB. It is also supposed to be a good one.

Setting up either of these will require some computer savvy, however. You are going to likely have to configure the forum in the code, and it will require working knowledge of your webserver and the SQL database backend that the forum runs off of.

^ what he said.

bf and a couple of his friends just bought the latest vB, it's 160 US$ i believe. a bit pricey, but if you want to do any fancy stuff, have all sorts of control, it's *the* shit.

If you're just going to have a small forum with no great desire for customisation except for basic things, phpbb is commonly used.

http://www.invisionboard.com/ another top choice

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Blah it use to be free for personal use, can't seem to find it now

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IPB is the best free forum software I have come accross.
It's still free:
http://www.invisionboard.com/download/index.php

If you want an Invision board but don't want the hassle of setting it up yourself check out InvisionFree.com . It's completely free and simple to use. You do have to put up with having a few ads on the board but for the most part they are fairly unobtrusive and you can pay to have them removed if you want.

Your not going to be able to set a board like TFP using this service (they don't allow adult content) but it's a good deal if your just starting out and want to learn more about how to run a forum for yourself.

vBulletin is by far the BEST.

(I own a vBulletin forum.) The interface for vB is simple and easy to learn. Its also widely used and popular...ie: I know alot of people that tend not to join a forum if its not using vB. Kind of pompous, but true... :o

Top FREE ones in my opinion:

PHPBB, then IPB, then YABB.

All requier php, and a sql account.

AHHHHHH there it is, thats what i get for not looking to hard, thanks.

I help run 3 forums (admin at a VBB site, and mod on the IPB). And my preference is the IPB.

also from the ivnision you should be able to find a link somewhere ill look and edit this later where they will actually host your board for you for a set up fee maybe 10 bucks i think and like 10 bucks a month which comes with 5gb of bw, 50mb of storage for pm's avatars etc, not a bad deal at all, you have total control over the board itself but they handle setup and updates etc no need to install mysql or php if you dont wanna mess with it.