I'm researching how to add a forum to a Webpage. The Webmaster is a volunteer and I don't expect him to know how to write the code necessary to create a forum. I'm guessing that the easiest way is to buy forum-creating software. Does anyone have suggestions as to the best and most economical software, or information about free forum-creating methods?

Thank you.

Tracy

I use Simple Machines (SMF). It's free, easy to use and tweak, and well supported. Get it for free here: Home of SMF: Free PHP and MySQL forum software (http://simplemachines.org/)

SMF is the newer project, it kindof replaced the old Yabb SE forums.

Another decent project is phpBB • Creating Communities Worldwide (http://www.phpbb.com/)

A decent portal, which includes a forum and has many modules available, is PHP-Nuke (http://phpnuke.org/)

I've read somewhere that SMF creates better code from an SEO perspective than phpBB, so it may take less tweaking to get an SMF BB noticed by search engines (that's why I chose SMF over phpBB). Don't know about the code generated by PHP-Nuke. However, I'm no SEO expert and haven't looked at the code generated so take this for what it is: a second-hand opinion. BTW, there are web sites out there that provide tips on tweaking all three platforms for SEO.

Vasily

Also, it's been my experience that phpBB is a bigger target for hackers than SMF.

Thank you, Rick. I just looked at it. It looks good.


I use Simple Machines (SMF). It's free, easy to use and tweak, and well supported. Get it for free here: Home of SMF: Free PHP and MySQL forum software (http://simplemachines.org/)