I think Mybb is gonna take over the free forum market.

I think MyBB will bite away at phpBB bit by bit over the next year or two, it seems to be getting a lot stronger. It just needs a stronger modding and styling community.

I also think that the fact a lot of styles and mods for MyBB are paid has and will continue to put some people off.

 

SMF is pretty user friendly. Also, great support is available on their forum, if you need it.
Great variety of mods and themes available make it, in my opinion, better than the other softwares i've used.

 

myBB wins on every point that you can throw as advantages for the others.

It feels really great to just upload a plugin and select "activate" instead of roaming around losing time with edits and worries if the next update is going to break things up.

myBB is free and the available plugins are super. The themes are also getting better and better and you pay 0 cents for all of this.

 

i agree with nuno, Mbb will keep growing and getting bigger. SMF is gonna die soon. the develpors and managers have been arguing for 2 yrs now thats y smf2 still isnt done.

 

My vote would have to go to MyBB. It's super easy to get started with and is a great substitute for vBulleting - better than phpBB IMHO. The plugins and mods are getting better too.