I was wondering what is the best opensource forum out there thats easy to use and setup?

 

Has anybody got any experience in them? Would just like to know,

 

- Which one is the best?

- Are they easy to use?

 

etc?

 

Thanks

I'd go with PHPBB3. It's extremely customizable, you can even implement them into existing pages. Very easy to set up as well.

PHPBB is probably one of the most featureful ones around, but personally i've always found punbb sufficcient for my needs. At the end of the day, you need to look at the features you need, want and then match them up to the closest product.

 

Having 100 features you don't need is just adding bloat and complications.

 

Just my $0.02

 

 

Will any hosting work as long as it has php and mysql for PHPBB?

 

How would involvement is there with using php as i haven't really used that b4?

Yes you just need a new database for the forum and your host needs PHP of course.

 

There is no PHP involvement at all when you start the forum apart from setting your DB details in one config file I think, but the installation guide goes through that. Then it's just a matter of uploading everything it tells you to to your server then navigating to the install.php file in your browser and go from there. It's pretty simple.

Sounds simple enough, thats a great help i should pick that up pretty easy then (touch wood)

 

Thanks for the help and info :-)

One last question if someone wants a forum, how much would you charge for it?

A free forum like phpBB I would just add on about £20-£30 for basic setup and install with nothing else, more if they want it custom skinning and all the forums/pages setting up. If they want a paid version like VBulletin obviously you would charge them the cost of a license plus the same fees as for the free one.

£20 - £30 for setup...it must be that easy then to setup charging that much.

 

Will set one up over the weekend and see what its like to integrate into my current website.

 

I thought it would have been in the hundreds!

I'm just guessing since I currently don't sell any work, but I don't think you can charge that much for pure basic setup, which really is just:

 

- Download latest version

- Create MySQL database

- Insert those details to config file

- Upload files

- Install via browser

 

That can all be done in about 15 minutes, can't really charge much more I'd have though. Chances are though they will want it all setting up, designing to fit the site style and setting up all the actual forums, that is obviously a lot more work an would need more charging.

Another one you should consider is SMF. phpbb is all well and good, but it is known to have more vulnerabilities than smf, punbb etc.

 

SMF is simple to setup, easy to skin, and infinitely customisable (just like most free forum/bb scripts).

Yeah the basic setup i wont charge alot for. But as i havent done it, say if a user wanted all that doing "designing to fit site, changing style and setting up of the forums etc..." how much would you typically charge for this..approx? As i dont want to rip people off.

 

Cheers Scott will check that one out as well, both look very good and easy to setup, will have a mess about with them at the weekend.

As I say I don't sell any work so I have no idea what the market price would be for something like this, sorry.