Forum Software - opinions & expertise requested
-
I should add that the PHP based ones are generally less full featured and (subjectively to me) "feel older"
-
I agree Tony and I do like Discourse (The Zesty Forum is built on that) I was quite surprised at the cost of it though but I guess there pricing includes hosting.
So out of the 3 on your list I would vote Discourse
Doug
-
yeah hosted discourse is pricey but it can be hosted elsewhere on the cloud.
-
Tony has nicely stated my concerns of phpbb (also the large amount of spam those get) and why I like Discourse a lot. It fits your requirements nicely. It is on the more expensive end if you want to use their hosted solution, and there are cheaper options for 3rd party hosted Discourse, or self-hosted. I've used Bitnami to deploy Discourse to an Azure VM/ Cloud Service before, when I had the monthly service credit. DigitalOcean is cheaper…
-
I own/run a large forum (x-h2o.com) that I started in 2006 and helped run another large forum before that for 4-5 years. I've run phpbb, vbulletin, and for the last many years have been on Xenforo and love it. vbulletin lost its soul years ago. phpBB just doesn't have much development going on. I've used SMF also for another forum I started for smoking meat (and just remembered for our state's mountain bike association as well) and liked it well enough.
-
I did look at Xenofora but decided against paying for a non opensource version when I could pay for discourse.
I have asked on the MyBB and discourse forums about migration.
-
I've been using the Discourse system for a while now and find it quite user friendly and effective (Zesty group and 3d printing general discussion).
-
Don't know if you have seen this:
https://ultimaker.com/en/community/52169-ultimaker-community-forum-migration
-
Small question, would it be possible to add Gravatar integration to automatically fetch profile pictures based on e-mail as an option?
(Just mentioning that Discourse is rather okay to use (Syncthing is using it) and I'd pick that)
-
We are using Discourse and for me it works exactly as expected.
It is easy to administer, has a nice collection of plug ins to allow you to extend the functionality and generally feels like a solid performer.
Setup was a little bit of a niggle as we had issues with the email provider, but it is working well now. -
As a user I have liked the few discourse sites i visit… ardupilot.org is one of them
-
MyBB or Discourse
-
I like Woltlab Burningboard.
By far the best you can get. (Not free but Features and Designs on mass)
-
I like the one that Velleman switched to. Don't know what it is they use, but it has a killer feature for long archived threads - it's like a slider that lets you zoom to the start or end. There's no 'pages' as such. Great feature, nice design too. Super easy to find what you posted where, replies to those threads, new topics, etc. Just everything done right.
-
Maybe its just familiarity, but of all the forums I use I like the Duet's forum's appearance and fast response to clicks, it's clean and easy to read and use.
I wouldn't be too quick to change for change's sake.
-
But it has some missing features too:
- no auto-subscription for notifications when you post/reply; more, it dis-subscribes each time you post!
- the update link in the Recent Activity page points to the last post, and not to the first unseen one.
-
if ur still looking message me i run my own web design business and hosting company
i can help provide you with something -
+1 for Discourse, easy to use, easy to admin, easy to implement plugins.
-
I vote for Discourse
-
Discourse works well. I think it's important to add that theming is important regardless of the solution selected. Beyond just good looks, it can really help with ease of use as well.
Really glad to hear this is being considered.
This might be a bit off the wall, but since the majority of the posts here seem to be questions / users seeking help, would a stack exchange-esque option make sense? Then the OP could select an answer that solved their issue, people could up vote helpful comments, and have sub-threads built in to responses instead of intertwining with the rest of the conversation. I think this really makes the information and effort put into a thread more future proof and easy to mine for future users/searchers.
