From an admin standpoint:
- phpBB/2 are, in my opinion, the most customizable and flexible (
www.phpbbhacks.com, anyone? and it's also easy to implement your own coded customization). As has been said, SMF has a great databasing system, but I've never had any experience moderating one so I'm not sure how good the admin functionalities are (they're pretty though, nice themes from the getgo).
From a user standpoint:
- SMF and vB are fun to customize and such (phpBB doesn't by default allow users to come up with a personalized subtitle, for example) and just seem overall fairly user-friendly. This is the only big vB forum I've ever been on, but it's got a lot of awesome features that I haven't seen on the other types; the user cp is HUGE compared to, say, phpBB.
Invision... I don't really like, from a user
or admin standpoint.
Quote:
|
Originally Posted by ChrisHughes
To me it comes down to this:
If you want it free, go SMF
If you want the best, go vB
|
I agree with this sentiment
In the end though, it really comes down to the content. The average users probably couldn't tell the difference between the different types and will come anyways. The forum that I spend the majority of my time on is a heavily customized phpBB system; just because it's a certain type doesn't mean that people aren't going to use it. I had a beautiful forum set up using the
ProBoards system (that I personally love, but I hate how you have to use their site/hosting), but in the end it probably had only 20-25 users just because it didn't have that.. spark that the big ones seem to get.