Forums
Here I will layout different forums, and the ones I have used and ones I currently use.
Forums I use
- Flarum (https://flarum.org/)
- I still use at Tech Talk Forum
- My personal preference
I used to use:
- Simple Machines (https://www.simplemachines.org/)
- I think it was for an old domain and it was a tech forum.
Comparisons
Information updated as of August 27th 2020
| Name | License | Free Open Source? | Paid Pricing | Version | Last Update | Language |
| bbPress | GPL | ✅ | ❌ | v2.6.5 | 2020-05 | Wordpress Plugin |
| Discourse | GPL | ✅ | $100/mo | v2.5.1 | 2020-08 | Ruby >= 2.5.2 |
| ElkArte | BSD | ✅ | ❌ | v1.1.6 | 2019-07 | PHP >= 7.1 |
| Flarum | MIT | ✅ | ❌ | v0.1.0-beta.13 | 2020-05 | PHP >= 7.2.9 |
| FlashBB | Custom | ✅ | ❌ | v2.0.1 | 2018-06 | Python |
| FluxBB | GPLv2 | ✅ | ❌ | v1.5.11 | 2018-12 | PHP >= 5.6 |
| miniBB | GPL | ✅ | $70/lifetime | v3.4.2 | 2019-10 | PHP >= 4.1.0 |
| MyBB | LGPLv3 | ✅ | ❌ | v1.8.24 | 2020-08 | PHP >= 5.2 |
| NodeBB | GPLv3 | ✅ | $250/mo | v1.14.3 | 2020-08 | NodeJS >= 12.18 |
| Phorum | Custom | ✅ | ❌ | v5.2.23 | 2017-01 | PHP >= 5.2 |
| phpBB | GPLv2 | ✅ | ❌ | v3.3.1 | 2020-08 | PHP 7.1.0+ but less than PHP 7.3 |
| PunBB | GPLv2 | ✅ | ❌ | v1.4.5 | 2020-01 | PHP >= 4.3.0 |
| Simple Machines | Custom | ✅ | ❌ | v2.0.17 | 2019-12 | PHP >= 5.4.0 |
| Vanilla Forums | GPLv2 | ✅ | Contact them | 3.3 | 2019-10 | PHP >= 7.1 |
I would recommend any of the ones still currently having security and bug fixes. Such as bbPress/Discourse/Flarum/MyBB/NodeBB/phpBB
I would also recommend PHP 8 support if using PHP.
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