After getting bitten a bit too many times by phpbb, i'd say SMF as its a lot secure than phpbb. Only use phpbb if you enjoy cleaning up hundreds of spam posts and bot registrations each day.
when I looked at smf, the thing I didn't like is that every post in every thread is clickable that must confuse the heck out of googlebot
Just a suggestion. Don't go for looks. You can customize any forum software to look the way you want. But it's always better to use a 'secure' software. You will know it's importance when your forum grows and you had to delete hundreds (if not thousands) of bot posts and spam registrations. And on one day, you will lose all your work because of lack of security and someone hacks your board. Because of this reason, I will never choose PhpBB as it is having a great history of exploits. If you want free, go for SMF. If you want paid, go for vBulletin (Latest version of IPB 2.3.3 is also good)
A lot of you guys seem to prefer SMF over phpBB, but then the poll seems to tell a different story... What's going on? Apart from EJRaven's post to advice on using MyBB and Vanilla, which are alternative forum software, it seems that there is still rather little difference between SMF and phpBB.
I have a phpbb forum ,and I received so much spam that I stopped it! My webmaster is trying to add the mods for me, I hope everything will be ok soon. Since I am getting a new Joomla site, I will get a forum specially for Joomla.
Yes, it is. And a very popular one in Chinese language forums. They have an English version but it is not known, they have not done any proper promotion I guess.
I gave SMF a vote ... If they continue with their progress they will surpass PHPBB in everybody's mind.
Hello there, I think phpBB3 is way better only if you know how to keep the spambots at bay.. more easy to mod, bigger community, etc
Ever tried to implement a context image confirmation upon registering the site ? Very ease to "hardcode" into phpBB .. if you know php.
Just FYI, we are talking about free (unpaid) forum applications. Of course most of us will know that either vBulletin or Invasion are the best applications for forums site.