I'm thinking about making a web forum and was wondering which forum software I should to run it. I am looking for something sleek and modern with lots of features. It also needs to be free. I have found that Discourse and NodeBB might be what I'm looking but I am not sure which one is better or if there is something else out there that is even better. If you have any comments on either of these or have another suggestion, let me know.
VB and xenforo are the best, look both of their admin demo from their site and find out which one is best for you.
If you're looking for a paid one, I would suggest having a look at Woltlab Burning Board. Since you have stated that you're looking at a free one, here are my recommendations: Simple Machines, phpBB or bbPress. It's been a while since I touched SMF. bbPress is a Wordpress product. If you've used WP, you'll enjoy this.
5 Most Popular Forum Scripts 1.vBulletin 2. Invision Power Board 3. phpBB 4. Simple Machines Forum 5.bbPress
Hello, xenforo, PHPBB are much better then the others, but you have some more choices: 1. Codoforum (php, free) Modern and Out standing with rich content support, It is still a very new forum. 2. IP.Board (php, commercial) Modern, flexible, Requires core package which is very expensive. 3. SMF (php, free and open source) Great mods, and a great community, its can be hard to customize if you aren't used to the admin interface.
If you need free forum software, I would suggest the following: 1. Simple Machines Forum (SMF) 2. phpBB 3. WordPress with bbPress 4. Joomla with Kunena 5. Discuz (English Version) Paid forum software I would suggest: 1. Xenforo - DigitalPoint is using it 2. vBulletin 3. IP Board
For paid software I recommend VBulletin or XenForo. For Free I highly recommend MYBB one of the best free forum software.