Looking for a new forum engine

[Jean-Baptiste Kempf]

Hello,

This engine phpBB is bloated, slow and subject to spammers. So we need:
* a very fast and light one (we don't care about lots of icons, and bling, bling)
* an advanced control of spam (like delete all the messages and ban this IP address in ONE click when we see a spammer)
* customizable will be a plus.

OK, and I don't care about phpBB + MOD xyz + MOD zyzsss + MOD hjkhjkhk

Please HELP

[Tombigel]

Looked around for you a bit...

First of all, did you see this list?

Or looked around at the demos here?

Some suggestions:

1. You can always mod phpBB, or wait for the next release / try and use the 3.0 beta, it's supposed to be a lot better.

2. One of my favorite forums HWzone (it's in Hebrew, but you can see the structure) is using Simple Machine's SMF.
it's not OSS, but has a similar licence

Edit: MODx cms forums are also SMF (and have a beautiful design)

It's very close to phpBB in looks but with a lot more functionality
I don't know how is the Administration but I can ask around a bit.

3. I've been looking at Phorum, and it looks nice - really realy simple, and supposed to be very powerful.
This is the forum software that http://www.opensourcecms.com are using in their forums.

4. There is also http://www.quicksilverforums.com/ that looks nice, but I didn't look into it so much

BTW -
The big guys (for example - http://ubuntuforums.org) are using vBulletin, which is NOT free.

[Asim]

punbb - punbb.org


- Asim

[Feldon]

I highly recommend SimpleMachines forum.

http://www.simplemachines.org


Its not the lightest forum, but I haven't had problems with spam.

You can Ban IP, and then as a separate function, Delete This Account. Deleting the account gives you the option to remove the users posts, or topics/posts.

[RoLex]

vBulletin is absolutely the best solution.

Another thing you could do about phpBB is to update the Verification image code to version 3.x. It uses different angles of letter/number preview and colors, which makes it almost impossible to scan.

You shoud really update this board, it does not seems good (new posts in this forum). You can contact me by email if you like to, I'll try to help you to update image verification code.

[Jean-Baptiste Kempf]

vBulletin is NOT an option. Non opensource boards should not be used.

[RoLex]

Non opensource boards should not be used.

Atleast update image verification code, as I said. And good luck with phpBB, you see by yourself how much it sucks. =))

[Jean-Baptiste Kempf]

I know :'(

SMF, phpBB or punBB

[Feldon]

SMF is not technically open-source, but it is free and is now operated by its own foundation. It also has a large community behind it, with a lot of community resources available in terms of themes and modifications.

[Olachicos]

The best forum software is definately, without a doubt invisionboard. Costly yes but when you have it it is spectacular. If you want to see a "preview" visit this free forum hosting

[R A V E N]

Some people here say that phpBB isn`t good and so on,but I do not think so.This is what I have noticed with new versions of software:no matter how much is improved and enpowered,people always find some reason why older and more flawed version is the "that real thing".To me phpBB looks like mature and really good piece of software which can be finely tuned to suit needs.

But...

If for some reason phpBB isn`t an option,my vote goes to PunBB.Even makers of µTorrent use it`s fork FluxBB on µTorrent`s site.Those two forums looks almost the same.

Few thoughts on forum design:
No matter which kind of forum you choose,it should have really minimalistic design plus accent should be put only at content of post.That means disabled signatures except moderator`s ones,clear user infoboxes except only an username and so on.

Skin also should be changed for more stronger contrast and more pleasant color scheme.

IMO this is a neat skin.

And remove upper non phpBB strip.

[Arite]

If for some reason phpBB isn`t an option,my vote goes to PunBB.Even makers of µTorrent use it`s fork FluxBB on µTorrent`s site.Those two forums looks almost the same.

AFAIK this topic was done in the time of phpBB 2.0.x - nothing wrong with phpBB IMO, other than being a target for spammers (which could be reduced potentially by tweaking the registration settings). Agreed PunBB is meant to be a good alternative.

Few thoughts on forum design:
No matter which kind of forum you choose,it should have really minimalistic design plus accent should be put only at content of post.That means disabled signatures except moderator`s ones,clear user infoboxes except only an username and so on.

Sigs can be useful for non-moderators and avatars aren't really an issue.

Skin also should be changed for more stronger contrast and more pleasant color scheme.

Well, maybe if other people agree - this theme is just prosilver with a VideoLAN header strip so the colour scheme is widely used.

Arite.

[Jean-Baptiste Kempf]

Yeah, this post is way outdated and phpBB3 rocks way more than phpBB2