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.