Well, I help manage the IRC, website, and forums of a minecraft server, and we recently acquired a .com website and hosting, so we're looking for new forum software. That and our current forums (PhpBB under forumotion) svck. We're looking for forums with good scalability, customization, pricing, ease of access, moderation, administration, etc. Anyone here have any recommendations? We were considering the following:

• BurningBoard - It would be an immediate buy if most of the community, addons, and tutorials were in English. Unfortunately for everyone but me, most are in German, and my fellow administrators don't want to have try to make sense of things if I have to take an extended leave for some period of time, or just quit. Consider it from a native English-speaker's point of view. Is it worth it?
  
• IPB - I've heard very good things.
  
• XenForo - I've heard good things.
  
• vBulletin - I've heard it's bloated, and it's rather expensive, but I've heard good things.
  
• Simple Machines - I hate simple machines, but it's free and not terrible.

Anyone like anything from the list? Have anything else to recommend? We're really looking for serious advice, as we're going to be spending a decent deal of money on forum software. I'd prefer to not spend more than $70 USD, but obviously, unless we go with BurningBoard or SMF, or other terrible forums (*cough* PhpBB *cough* SMF *cough* Proboards *vomit*), we're going to somewhat be forced to. I know a lot of people on these forums are very knowledgeable, so that's what I'm posting this here.

I think this forum uses IPB, but I'm not sure..

What exactly are your problems with phpBB? Short of an annoying issue with staying logged in (entirely my fault), I've never had any issues with version 3. I personally like IPB (this board's software), but its going to set you back far more than 70$.

I don't like the way phpBB is set up, mainly. The entire forum is just a huge disaster and stress to manage, and my fellow staff agree.

I've always been quite fond of phpBB, not quite sure what problems you seem to be having with it.

I quite like SMF, having been both a normal user on a couple of forums with it, and a moderator on one. To me, it is easy and straightforward to use, well thought out, and just generally does things in a way I like.

What issues do you have with it?

I don't like the fact that everything tells you where your permissions are, I don't like the way the ACP is set up, and I don't like that it's not in Object-Oriented PHP




It seemed sub-par. Honestly, I haven't seen enough of it to know how good it is, but it didn't seem that enjoyable when I used it a few years back. It seemed like IPB and Burningboard and vBulletin were all on a tier far above it.

You could have a go at installing it/setting it up/mucking around with it to get a better feel for it. That takes time and effort, I know, but at least it doesn't cost money :hehe:.

I'm a fairly active user on a vBullitin forum, and I can't say I find it a particularly better experience than SMF :shrug:.

As much as I hate the whole Facebook integration crap about IPB, there is quite a substantial amount of options and a lot of support.

Yeah I like SMF as well, I've had no issues with it on a forum I've been a member to for years. I dunno how it is on the management side though.

IPB is expensive(130 for the board...) vbulletin is even MORE expensive.

The good free one is phpbb.

As others have said, IPB isn't cheap (i.e. somewhat outside your budget) but it'd be my preferred option too. I think IPS still offer packages where you can pay a monthly hosting fee rather than actually buying it, which might be worth looking into.

I forgot to say that I'm currently doing some light moderating* on phpBB forum. I often find it a bit... clunky in the way it does things. It may be an outdated version, though (its what Sourceforge provides).

*Pretty much just removing spambots at the moment, as the place is small enough to need little more.