5 Best Forum Software to Build an Online Community
Running a forum is quite easy today with a lot of forum software present all over the internet. But making a forum successful is very difficult. Any forum does not instantly become busy with people discussing pieces of stuff. Forums behave initially like blogs and later ride up with content generated by users.
Let’s say you start a pet owners forum and you want more people to join. Who would sign up for a forum where there are only you and 0 posts? To begin talking about things, you will need to register on the forum using various profiles. This is similar to blogging, but it takes a different approach. When more people start to visit your forum, it will appear busier and they will believe that their posts will receive a response. Your forum will grow in this way, and eventually you won’t have any other responsibilities aside from forum management. removing spam and relocating posts to the relevant sections.
Although my recommendation is Xenforo if you are not going for a paid one then SMF looks better. But you should decide on your own by checking out the forums given below.
Here are the top 105 forums for you to start your discussion forum –
1) Xenforo – Price ($140)

Xenforo is by far the most popular forum software in the world today. A few good guys at Vbulletin left Vbulletin to form Xenforo. Of course, they had to face a few lawsuits by vbulletin, but eventually, they replaced vbulletin from the top spot. Many of the world’s largest and busiest forums, which were previously hosted on Vbulletin, have switched to Xenforo. As of right now, the forum software utilizes the fewest server resources and functions flawlessly with the fewest bugs.
2) invasion power – Price ($175)

Invision power is also a very famous forum script which of course is paid, but is powering many popular communities across the web. Its fluid layout design and light colors along with fast script make it an excellent choice for serious webmasters planning to launch their forum.
3) Mybb – Price (Free)
Mybb is another lightweight free open-source forum script based in PHP/Mysql that looks cool and competes with paid forum software. Another advantage is that you can easily migrate from any other known forum software to Mybb using the Mybb surge system.

4) The Simple Machine Forum is an Open Source (Free) resource.

SMF is the best free forum software available today. One of the most popular forums nairaland is made out of SMF. This is hassle-free to install and operate because it was created with PHP and MySQL. A lot of customized free and paid themes are also available to bend it to your needs. If you are starting a forum and do not want to spend more than 100 bucks initially on Xenforo, you can go ahead and choose SMF. Once it starts gaining a few visitors and you become sure of its success, you can always migrate in between.
5) PHPbb – Open Source (Free)

Another PHP-based open-source forum program is called PHPbb. It used to be the most widely used free forum script worldwide. However, due to its inability to fight forum spam, it slipped down the ladder. It is still very popular among user who is looking for free open-source bulletin board software for their website.
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