Best forum software?

I am trying to choose the right forum software for a new forum-based website I am setting up. The general requirements are pretty straight-forward, however one key requirement is that there will be one section of the forum where users pay to subscribe to threads. This would either involve paying to subscribe to individual threads, paying to subscribe to all threads within the section by a specific user, or paying to subscribe to all threads within the section of the forum.

I hope I've explained that clearly enough!

Can anyone recommend a forum software package that would do the job?

 

Vbuletin can do this out of the box. I would suggest vbulletin . Subscriptions etc can be handlled within vbulletin panel.

 

Pay to subscribe to threads? Never heard of anyone doing that.

As said above, try vBulletin. I know there is a pretty decent subscription system. You can try it out in a demo too.

 

Yeah vBulletin is excellent for that, SMF has a script that does that too, and SMF it's free.

But if people are going to be paying, I recommend vBulletin for that.

 

SMF is the best forums script ever... try it I'm preety sure it will work perfectly.

 

I agree with tiger, the 2 links in my signature are forums with smf scripts, check them out!

 

If you want a paid solution, Jelsoft's vBulletin would be your best bet. If you don't have the dime, I'd recommend the open source PHPBB.

 

Thanks for the info guys, it's really appreciated. I think I will give SMF a try, then if I don't like it I'll go for vBulletin. To be honest I much prefer the look and feel of vBulletin but it's expensive and the project I need it for is not expected to make much money, so maybe SMF will be the best option.

 

vBulletin is very good, and for free try phpbb3

 

free- phpbb2 or 3

paid - ipb [i m using it]

 

I agree if you're looking for a free forum phpbb3 is a good one, if you host offers cPanel, it may already be offered and is as easy as a one click installation.

Dee

 

paid and first choice : vbulletin
free : phpbb

bol

 

php is not very reliable when it comes to saftey and spam protection, not good if you have paying members

http://www.forum-software.org/phpbb/review

Versus SMF:
http://www.forum-software.org/smf/review

 

free: mybb --> smf -->bbpress
paid: vbulletin --> IPB

 

vbulletin is top rated and uses most by people for their forums now.
not just because of it is security but also vb has many features, and full supported and upgrade.

 

manage 4 forums with vbulletin, can't complain and it's very easy to manage from admin area.

 

vBulletin is pretty much the best.. but the thing is that it costs a lot of money in my eyes...
I mostly use phpBB, easy to understand, works fast... and it's better than IPB, SMF etc

Greetz