It is a favoured target for hackers/script kiddies. If you do not patch it regularly, you will be scanned by one of them and your forum compromised. I went for a 2 week holiday and missed out on some security update. When I came back, one of my forums was hacked - 2 weeks without patching and that was the result. Be on every email list for security regarding PHPBB and patch as soon as an exploit is found.
IMO, none of them. I prefer this one, free and resembling vBulletin with many options and several easy-to-install plugins: http://www.xennobb.com Code (markup):
vBulletin all the way. It's fast, stable and most of all secure. It's worth loosing those previous 160$ if you forum does not work, atleast you have the license then, start another one see if that one works =)
with lots of modding .... check out the thread of the gaia owner on phpbb Without modding you can go big with punbb check out http://www.macaddict.com/forums/
Whatever forum DP uses is the best. I mean, we have no ongoing problems here do we? It's simply brilliant! Onya Shawn! Col
I use phpbb, gonna change to vbulletin for the successful forums. found mybb.com yesterday it looks pretty nice.
vbullitin is the best one it's my dream to buy vb. but no money so currently using SMF. i already saved 95$ for VB hope i'll buy it soon
This is exactly what happened to us. We started off with phpbb but eventually seemed to outgrow it and had issues (even on a dedicated box). When we went to vb everything went away and it just ran fine. The conversion process is pretty simple so starting off with phpbb isn't a bad idea.