bbpress or phpBB? Can’t decide what to use.

[Donna]

I am going to add a forum to one of my sites and I can’t decide what software to use. I am a big fan of wordpress so I was going to use bbpress but there have been so many complaints about its usability on freelanceswitch so now I am having second thoughts. I know phpbb is popular and Chris has produced a screen edit on how to skin it so that is where I am leaning.

Anyone with experience on bbpress or phpbb (or even vanilla or SMF)? Thanks.

[Indubitable Turtle]

I have a good bit of experience with SMF, and would definitely recommend it. It is fairly easy to theme, extremely easy to administrate, has pretty good security, and is perfect for a smaller forum environment. My own forum runs on SMF, as do others I frequent. If your host has cPanel with Fantastico, it’s an extremely easy install, too. If not, it’s still easy. :)

[Matt]

For forums, I usually suggest SMF for free. If you want, at least what I think is, the ultimate forum software, shell out some cash and get Invision Power Board (IPB). If you are a serious forumer (i.e. the goal of your site is centred around forums) then take a look at IPB.

[Indubitable Turtle]

Aye, IPB is pretty much sexiness in forum form. I’m planning on upgrading my site to IPB probably within the year.

But if the cost of IPB just seems too much for a new forum starting out, SMF is more than powerful enough. If you decide later that you need to migrate to IPB, there is software to convert your existing forum over, and for a nominal fee IPB will do it for you, even.

[vincent]

If you use WordPress MU with BuddyPress, you can integrate all users into the forum automatically very easy. If you just have like a WordPress blog like Chris, I wouldn’t use bbPress. phpBB or SMF would work better.

[Donna]

Thanks everyone for your help. I will go ahead and give SMF a try. Thanks again!

[carryblake]

I recommend you to try bbPress. It’s easy to install, there are lots of additional plugins, the loading time is better than with phpBB. Also, you don’t have to create any bridges for you forum integration with site.
phpBB is much more complex, it’s complicated to create and install mods. Also, it’s not so seo friendly as bbpress is and you will have to create the integration bridge between your phpbb forum and site.
I have tried phpbb and it was like a nightmare, but then I moved my forum items to bbPress (with cms2cms converter), so now I’m pretty satisfied with this.

So, I recommend you bbPress definitely!

[Author]

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