Best Forum Software?

[Cozy Monica]

I'd like to set up a forum inside a paysite. What are the latest forum scripts out there that people are using, and what are the best ones?

I prefer free, but I don't mind paying a reasonable fee for quality.

[sunfunbill]

I've been using SMF for my forum in crossdresser playground. It's free and easy to set up.

The only hitch is any add-ons, like ad placements and so on. I always get a glitch, but it's because I don't understand it.

Right out of the box as a forum though it's great.
http://www.simplemachines.org/

[Cozy Monica]

Cool, I'm going to check that out.

I'm curious as to what all the big guys are using on the massive sites?

[SharkFace]

SMF gets the from me as well!

[theviking]

Originally posted by Cozy Monica

I'm curious as to what all the big guys are using on the massive sites?

Mostly VB ($100 for leased and $180 for owned license).

For free i prefer phpbb over smf, but i guess that's just up to what you prefer.
I think it is easier to play around with the phpbb files compared to smf.

[Cozy Monica]

yeah, I'm familiar with phpBB... I've customized an installation before. I hadn't heard of SMF before.

[pimpwork]

never heard of SMF before. what is it?

[Cozy Monica]

Well I decided to download and install phpBB.

Now I have to customize the damn thing

[Chang]

I've played around customizing PHPbb. Definitely more of a pain than some others.

IMO, YABB is simple by comparison.

[pimpwork]

i prefer vBulletin 3 any day. thats my personal opinion. but sunfunbill i have never heard aabout simple machine forums before. i clicked on the link and liked what i saw. can you tell me in which way it is better than vBulletin and PHPBB?

[theviking]

Originally posted by Cozy Monica

Now I have to customize the damn thing

When you customize, just remember to save the files in 'UTF-8 without BOM' (in notepad++ format--> ).
If you use notepad, editpad or some other texteditor wich don't have this feature the changes won't show.