The Best Open Source Forums

Forums are the latest buzzword in the world of internet. They have truly been a revolution. An Internet forum is an online discussion site where people can hold conversations in the form of posted messages. Companies have started to inlcude forums in their websites. Forums serve as a good platform for consumers to interact. They have been helpful in empowering customers.

Some of the best open source forums are:

Vanilla

It is an open source forum developed by Mark O’Sullivan. Vanilla was developed using Php and MySQL. It can customized to suit one’s unique requirements by add-ons. Fully loaded with extensions, Vanilla is multilingual and fully extensible discussion forum. It is released under the GNU License. It is an excellent multi-lingual community building solution. Administrators can create sticky posts, locked posts, categories, and all the things you would expect from a web forum. Vanilla Forums are also built with integration at the forefront, so that it can seamlessly integrate with existing websites, blogs, and customized applications.

bbPress

This is an excellent forum which comes from the creators of WordPress. It is simple forum software. Speed and security are its pillars. It is easy to use and administer. This is a template driven Php/MySQL forrum.

IceBB

IceBB is a forum script based on Php and MySQL.  Its code output is extremely clean. IceBB has an RSS feed. IceBB is lightweight and easy to use. One of its advantages is that this script can scale very well. So if one has an ever increasing number of users, then one should give this script a serious consideration. IceBB has a very active community to turn to for help. One’s webhost should support PHP4.3 or above.

YaBB

This is the first open source perl forum software. YaBB runs very fast. This forum is writteh in Perl. It allows users to setup and control a "bulletin board" that can become a vital addition to website or even a stand alone as a website. YaBB can be used as communication tool 24 hours a day. It provides a real-time chat and support system for visitors.

Simple Machines Forum

This, too, uses PHP and MySQL, PostgreSQL. It has an advance permission and user management options. SMF is designed for optimal performance and scalability. It also has a template system which makes it easier for custom edits. This forum, too, has a multi lingual support. SMF actually is free professional grade forum software and not open source. It has an excellent Package Manager that automatically installs and uninstalls mods.

miniBB

It is a standalone program to build internet forums. It is developed with the purpose of posting and getting messages, answering questions, spreading opinions, providing support, and other kind of the online public communication between website visitors and maintainers. minibb is written in Php. It is light weight and search engine optimized. miniBB is a good alternative to phpBB.

WP – Forum

This is a simple discussion forum plug-in for WordPress blog. WP – Forum is the perfect solution if one has WordPress powered website. It supports three different skins which are changeable from the WP admin interface.

phpBB

phpBB stands for Php Bulletin Board. It is a highly customizable open source forum. One can customize mods with it. phpBB has an extensive database of user-created modifications and styles database containing hundreds of style and image packages to customise board. One can create a very unique forum in minutes with the help of phpBB.

Yet Another Forum

It is the most established open source forum or bulletin board for web sites running ASP.NET. YetAnotherForum.NET is fully coded in C# ASP.Net and uses Microsoft SQL Server. It comes with all standard forum features and even WYSIWYG editors.

Dantobb

It is an open source forum based on UseBB. It is developed in Php 4. Dantobb uses MySQL database to store data. It was released under the GNU General Public License version 3. Dantobb has options like private messages, polls and attachments.

FluxBB

It is a fast, light, user friendly forum application. FluxBB supports Php 4 and Php 5 and databases such as MySQL, SQLite and Postgre SQL. It produces valid HTML 1.0 strict pages.

PunBB

This is also a Php based discussion board. It is extremely light weight. PunBB version 1.3.5 offers a lot of fixes for bugs in CSS. It has fewer features than many other discussion boards, but is generally faster and outputs smaller, semantically correct XHTML-compliant pages.

MyBB

This is a free PhP and MySQL based forum. MyBB uses a standard discussion board structure, so visitors will feel familiar with the way MyBB works. It has an easily extendible forum functionality.

SEO Board

It is popular forum software that is search engine friendly. It is absolutely free and fast. SEO Board is written in Php and uses MySQL as back end. It provides full moderator support. It requires PHP 4.3.0 and MYSQL 3.23.23. SEO Board has anti spam protection. 

Phorum

This is an open source PhP forum software which is extremely fast. Phorum has a flexible hook and module system.