What's the best way to setup a forum these days?
 

Looking for some ideas about creating a forum, what is the best route to take these days?

I've only ever created one, and I used wordpress so it was basically free to create, but took ages to get it set the way I wanted. (this was about 3 years ago).

What's new on the forum front? Anyone offering hosting with forum software?

What I'm after is something simple, light, and needs to be able to embed other content like tweets, youtube etc.

Let me know your thoughts.

I used Vanilla the last time I built one for a client. That was over a year ago, but it was nice software then...so I assume it's still nice now.

http://vanillaforums.org/

VBulletin if you want to pay. PphBB if you don't. The pay version obviously has more features and functions.

Invest the money in Vbulletin. It's the only forums I will read, and they are pay to play for a reason. The rest are garbage.

I was looking at the one, will have to give it a try I think. Free is good.

Anyone used Xen Foro? Wondering if that is worth the money.....

PHPBB is my last resort I think.

Has VBulletin got any features like alerts, twitter embeds etc?

The only forum I've ever really posted much on is this one.

EDIT: To be clear, what I mean by that is I only know what you can do with vBulletin by what we can do with it here.

You'll think free is good until you have to upgrade and pay. It's easier to pay the small fee up front and not worry about it. If you want your forum to be successful, start with what you're going to grow with. Trust me on this, I started a sports forum using PhpBB because it was free. After I had 30 or more regular posters, the forum crashed more than it loaded. I had to dump the database and migrate the tables into a VBulletin database (which was an astronomical pain in the ass). Now I have over a 100 regular posters and the forum doesn't even glitch using VBulletin.

It has all that and more. It has a lot of different features you can use and you can install a shit load of MODS already written by other programmers. Reputation, embed, news feeds, chat, and even an online store is built into the most current version of VBulletin.

EDIT: Check out vbulletin.org and you'll see the thousands of MODS available for you to install and use.

I've built a few forums and received feedback from each of them. The non vB forums receive a lot of complaints because most people were used to and preferred vB. I've even had a number of people tell me they are not interested in participating on any forum that isn't vB.

The comments that my vB forums get are typically compliments about features I've added instead of complaints.

History has shown me to stick with vB. I've built 3 forums over the last 3 years and they are all vB. I don't even bother trying the others anymore. :2 cents:

Yeah, I agree. I have used a few others and they just don't compete. I find them very clunky and unorganized. Even from a navigational sense, VB beats them for UI/UK.

Nice to see you here. :)

Yah, they have all that and a lot more. Plus, they over cloud hosting for budgets, so you can grow the hosting package while your traffic grows.

They really get it.

Thanks for the advice!

These cloud versions of vanilla and vBulletin, am I right in assuming these are hosted?

So I can just point my domain to them, and set it all up?

Yes, VB will do the install for you too.

The ones I mentioned you have to install just like you'd install a standard CMS. But you are responsible for hosting and most of the time, a shared hosting plan won't cut it.

Perfect! I thought that was what those cloud options were, but wasn't 100%

Right, vBulletin cloud it is then I reckon. :)

Nice!

Good pricing on those cloud plans too.

Correction, it appears Vbulletin now has a cloud version which they host for you.

I always pay VB the 129.00 to install it. You get the peace of mind that it's right, and they will then give you special attention because they are essentially a 100% managed solution. If you install it, they don't know what you mess with. I tell them up front I don't care to know anything about server side, and that I just want to be a forum admin and they know that it's all on them.

Certified hosting has plenty of forum scripts such as PhpBB or Vanilla available as a one click install through Softaculous.

However, for a serious project I'd also recommend vBulletin.

So does every cpanel powered host :) And also,vbulettin is out-of-fashion ,everyone moving away from it to xenforo.In fact,i am surprised how gfy was not moved yet to xenforo.

I've used SMF before and it's pretty simple to setup and use. Some host have an auto install feature for this forum software too. SMF also has a lot of mods created for it to add things like youtube videos and such.

http://www.simplemachines.org/

VB is good until you get really big/active. Ask FreeOnes ;)

xenforo is the one I was thinking of using.

There's not really anything to mess with when doing a clean install and very easy to learn if you scared of installing it yourself.

I am not arguing with you about what you say but I have yet to see a site that uses xenforo that does not instantly turn me off.

I'm just looking at xenforo hosts, URLJet.com seems to have some good options.

Waiting to here back from vBulletin about what options their cloud service has, sounds like it may be a streamlined version and not entirely easy to make custom....

I'd be curious to hear any comments on vb vs xen foro. Was thinking of xen foro since it is supposed to be people from vb. It has great options for use but the look of it never turns me on. I like vb.

What do you use when your forum gets really big? Custom something?

I have much hate for vb. :mad:

My advice is to find something else. What? I'm not sure right now but vb isn't it.

As far as free goes, simple machines is a capable forum that can handle a lot of users.

mybb is my favorite. wordpress for the forum - nah :)

The recent version of vb is terrible. Xenforo is much better. It's similar enough to vb that your users will be fine with it.