best way to hae a forum on your site?

Hi I'm a bit of novice about this, but I'd like to have a forum on a website but don't know the best way to go about it. With wordpress you can download their code and put it on your own site and control it. Can you do the same with some popular freeware forum code? If so, can anyone recommend some? Or do you have to setup a forum on another server...?

Any comments, thanks.

Ive used phpBB fairly easily a couple of times on my own server. Although I do hear about this being hacked sometimes - keeping it updated is fairly easy too.

I set them up manually before now, but found out recently that powweb set these up for me automatically :D

i went with PunBB

http://www.punbb.org/

phpBB

A lot of sites recently switched to Simple Machines forum software.

http://www.simplemachines.org/

great info thanks keep it coming.

Simplemachines... Very easy, very secure(I believe) and very nice set of features.

You just need a hosting service which has php and mysql support.

phpbb... I used snitz2000 before and it's ok, but phpbb kicks it's arse all over the place. SUPER easy to install.

vBulletin.

PHPBB has been hacked too many times and frankly looks like a 'free' forum.

You will have to pay about $150USD for vBulletin but it's a much more professional forum (especially from the admin control panel). As the cliche goes, you get what you pay for.

Two vBulletin Examples:

http://www.gellyware.com/forum

http://forums.cgsociety.org/

Only forum i've used is made by myself, but it's like "multy threaded shoutbox with login" meaning that there are no forums, just some different threades -> http://battleempire.kylm.com/?id=forum

phpBB was certainly a favorite (I used it myself) but people seem to be moving away from it in droves after it being hacked quite a few times.

Personally, not one I would touch at the moment.
(at least google is clamping down on the seaches the hackbots use against these forums now).

OK great thanks for all the info!

gelly... why do you think phpbb looks more "free" than the one you are using on gellyware.com? I personally like the looks of phpbb with a good skin better than that. Not knocking your site by any means as it's a rather subjective thing. But just curious as to why you think that.

Why does phpBB look free!?!?

Check out mine

http://www.boiledsweets.com/forums

Does it look free? Uh?

Boiled: it looks good

Except that you use the same theme that Introversion does ;)

I like to think they are using the same one as me!

My site has been running that forums/theme for about 4 years

that is a good theme boiled... I nearly used that one myself. :)

i use:
www.freeforum101.com
you simply set up your forum then link to the forums url from your site.
using an iframe you can intergrate it into 1 page (although this can cause scrolling probs if the frame not big enough.
feel free to use my htmlsource as a guide to do this:
www.d-grafix.com?page=forum

you can set permsssions, private forums, banners etc, its quite good... for free

Has anyone ever used YaBB? Thanks.

phorum rules them all!

you can view most of them (default installation demos) at www.opensourcecms.com.

I've been using PHPBB and I like PHPbb 3 beta.

However, I'll probably be switching to PunBB since it has a very nicely expandable design, and the community isn't huge.
I'm very excited to get some RSS stuff going on for no reason at all :)

I started a thread on PHPbb 3 on these very forums just a little while ago, and there were a few good suggestions of other forum software.
Unfortunately, they were mostly in foreign languages so I gave up.

...Ah, here it is!

The best free forum is SMF from www.simplemachines.org

SMF is fast and secure, has loads of themes and mods available. It's a doddle to setup. When adding mods to the forum it'll verify everything is OK before you click the final install button, so for beginners wishing to update features its an invaluable feature.

PHPBB has had far to many security bugs for my liking and allthough I think its a pretty good forum, the hack-ability puts me right off.

YaBB is a classic. SMF has a built in theme which emulates the look of YaBB and as SMF is a superior forum, I'd go for SMF.

Moving away from free forums, VBulletin is the best for administrators, both from the control panel side and fiddling with the forum code to add your own features. To get an owned license, which means you do not have to pay each year to use it, it'll cost you $160 + VAT (if you are in the UK).

I tried PHPbb its crappy, I think this post is useful to me.

Yeah thats the problem with these forums ,I have a malicous visitor defacing my forum so had to removed it!

I think that I would rather make my own PHP code for the next forum, that way i have total control over the look etc. Having said that I will check out the others mentioned here.

The reason I want a forum is for a retro 8 bit compiler im making for Atari's and the like from the 80's

There is some interest and if I can get some people to join they could offer support for the compiler. Likewise I could use the forum to post my tutorials for it etc.

@Boiled

That doesnt look free, it looks great

I feel ashamed of my site......

Answer: Not have one at all. Forums aren't really needed unless open long dialogue between many people is a requirement for what you are doing. In most cases, a comments form or a shoutbox is all that people really need.

DampeS8N: For this particluar purpose (a self help website) it is required.

I concurr my phpBB forums got hacked and spammed so many times the novelty has worn off. Spam bots in particular are annoying. Generally speaking getting hacked isn't too bad and is fixable, although it's a hassle. Spamming though is almost daily and cleaning it up takes too much time.

www.punbb.org is definately way better. So far, touch wood, i've not been hacked or spammed.

Example of forums in use: http://www.simtouringcarcup.com and goto forums in bottom right (whilst you are there check out the race video /end shameless plug).

Banshee: Ah yes I recognise that forum style.