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I’ve got Forum software on my mind these days. One of the Forums I’m an Admin at is thinking of a theme change. They are using myBB. Now I know that myBB in particular is known for conflicts with themes. At any rate I then started to think, is there a Forum software that is better than myBB and is free?
How about Discord? Does that count as a Forum? It does have the same feeling and looks more dynamic in a way?
Which Forum software are you in favour off?
Hey Genesis,
That are great questions I think I just saw here myBB in use. Is this theme have for example the dark mode on ?
Regarding the Discord one I think it doesn’t fit a forum part is more a communication hub like slack or you think is in the same range as an online forum?
Hey Genesis
I agree with kreesher, Discord is a communication software.
I found a nice and neat forum software called codoforum. It is worth a try.I think that MyBB is better than phpbb because as a person who has used both of them I reckon that Mybb is better because it looks more modern than phpbb (not sure about themes though)
Also as kreesher said i think that discord is isn’t really forum software.I’m thinking again about what the better forum is. I’ve lost a little trust in mybb as post4vps.com is closing its doors due to a compromise of its database three years ago. I think it’s maybe a little overreaction. But while we were identifying the issue, I realized just how vulnerable mybb is for exploits. It’s just so very important to keep mybb up to date all of the time. As that was what turned out to be the problem. Mybb script had not been up to date.
Another issue with mybb is that if you have a theme and a few plugins, conflicts can be a headache and keep support admin very busy. And when time comes to update the mybb script, it can become a nightmare. It’s not just a case of clicking a button like one can with WordPress to upgrade mybb to the latest version. The new version can potentially conflict with plugins. So one has to first disable the plugins and check the working of the theme. I remember at Gigarocket when we changed the theme to its current, every time when an upgrade happened there were a huge number of Forum issues that came up.
phpbb is not much different to mybb. I prefer phpbb to be honest because its community forum is much better managed and supported by tech admin than the mybb community forum. There are also much nicer themes available. But in the end to upgrade the script has the same issues as with mybb. Potential for conflicts with plugins and themes.
I’m just about to try out Simple Machines Forums (SMF). At the recommendation of a friend. So maybe when I check in next time I’ll be able to share my experiences.
Of course most people with big bucks have moved over to Xenforo. I absolutely refuse to pay $160 US for a panel. Admittedly Xenforo is great and its themes (most of which are paid) are great. But for me I think it’s aimed at large corporations serving their clients and who have plenty of money to invest, which I don’t have.
Last time I tried SMF it was a huge spam magnet.
Even this wordpress/bbpress isn’t that safe. It was getting a lot of spam users and posts – I had to delete around 42000 spam users. But thankfully wordpress.org has a lot of good security plugins which fixes most of the issues.
@binil This is so true with SMF. After post4vps.com closed its VPS hosting, one of the members started a Forum very nostalgically with IMF. I even created an IMF to see how it works. Any way, there were only three of us posting to the new IMF Forum and then the member got busy and no one posting, and the moment the Forum became inactive, it totally went over to spam like on a massive scale. It looked like bot spam. I think if one wants an active Forum, then one should go for something like myBB or phpBB. Although I must say they’re a pain to update.
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