what's a great alternative for vbulletin?

I want to put up my own forum but I was hoping I could install one for free instead of paying $160 for vbulletin. Hmm... Any suggestions from web gurus here?

 

If you plan on making a serious and big forum, I'd go for vBulletin. It's worth it, in my opinion.

But anyway, some alternatives are:
www.phpbb.com
www.imperialbb.net
www.mybboard.net (Similar to vB)
www.simplemachines.org

 

PhpBB3 is alright i think. And it's completelly free.

 

But it's a magnet for spammers, right?

I just want to try creating my own forum for now so I don't want to invest much on it yet that's why I can't go for vbulletin.

 

There are a lot of add-ons. There are probably a few anti-spam ones. Plus, phpbb3 is the latest version, and I think there've been major improvements. - If I had to pick a free forum software, I'd probably pick phpbb.

 

Mybb..Thier CP very similar to VB..

 

Well i have a forum that gets 2000+ unique clicks a day and a single spam case every.. let's say 3-4 days, sometimes once a week and sometimes even once in two weeks. It doesn't attract the spammers that much. PhpBB2 did, but you could have easilly installed some mods to prevent that. You don't even need that for phpBB3. I know a person who bought IPB board (a bit cheaper than vBulletin), used it a couple months and threw it away because it was useless. Now he's using phpBB3 without a single problem. It's good for SEO as well.

 

That's great info. Thanks! I'll try using phpBB3 then

 

These are ok choices if you set up some add-on security mods
www.simplemachines.org
www.phpbb.com

I'd still vote for vBulletin - it's really good.

Other than these, you could try using www.drupal.org - a community city that comes also with forums modules.

 

try smf, simple machines has great features! the karma feature is great, it's like the reputation. The admin has some great features, you can set the mods permission etc!
I would say, go for the smf and you will like it!

 

most forum scripts will have some type of spam protection

 

USE PHPBB3
its best
see comparision on there oficial site with all the topics covered

link : http://www.phpbb.com/about/features/compare.php

though its not vB alternative

 

Thanks, guys! I'm eyeing smf and phpbb3 now

 

I vote for phpbb3. I also use that for my money making forum

By the way, philposters, your face is like terra patrick lol ;-)

 

http://www.ipbfree.com