Hi guys. I want to open a forum site.. but will give suggestion that which free forum software will be best for me?? I want a lite software which have well ad publishing feature.
My favorite was always Simple Machines Forum — SMF in short — is a free I haven't used it for a long time but with the right template it filled the entire screen like Digital Point's does. Wonder what Digital Point runs on?
There is no good free software for forum. I recommend you to use Xenforo. It has a good community, a lot of plugins and it really quick.
I use XenForo, it was redesigned by the cream of the crop vBulletin coders when VB was sold. Keep in mind that you will incur a cost, its $140 for the license unless you buy a used license from someone. If you do that, make sure the support is still active on it so you can still transfer the license to yourself. If you want a responsive forum, XenForo does a great job right out of the box.
If you need something multilingual go with Woltlab Burning Board. It's not very expensive and great support but many addons are in German language.
I was thinking about spending $5,000 on upgrading my forums from Vbuletin to Xenforo, but after some idiot from Xenforo sent me email, banned my account for asking to give me ability to advertise, one of their main dude.... I will never even consider Xenforo.... No matter how good it is. These people at Xenforo need to learn some manners first... I will stick to VB and wait until they get their sh**t together.
No point asking what is the best forum software. Each platform has its fan boys and its detractors. If you want a forum, then you need to work out what specific functionalities that you really need and want and then go and try the platform that best meets your needs.
There 2 best ones. Xenforo - great software, idiots running it. Vbuletin - good people, idiot developers. That's the world we are living in. The rest is bull**it in terms of Google SERPs for long tails.