Hard Light Productions Forums
Off-Topic Discussion => General Discussion => Topic started by: Rictor on May 09, 2006, 09:35:24 am
-
For all those who have adminstered forums (HardLight admins, I'm looking at you), which forum solution would you consider to be the better overall option. I need to set up a forum, and the free alternatives seem perfectly fine. I've known about phpBB for quite some time, and would have used that had I not seen HardLight's switch to Simple Machines, which I hadn't know about until now.
I'm looking for a) ease of use (by the admin), which includes set-up and maintenance and b) robust functionality, though I'm fairly sure that both offer all the standard doodads and more. Never having done this kind of thing, I don't know what exactly to look for, which is why I'm asking you, the enlightened masses.
-
I wouldn't touch phpBB, it's codebase is badly outdated, it would be like running Windows ME instead of Windows 2000 or XP. phpBB 3 is getting duke nukem forever reputation as it is taking ages to complete. Of the free forum softwares, SMF is truly one of the best. If you choose SMF, go with SMF 1.1 RC2. The few bugs still present in RC2 are minor indeed.
-
PHPBB is good for a small scale forum, SMF is good for a large one like HLP.
-
SMF is good for a large one like HLP.
SMF 1.0 is not really optimized for large forums, but 1.1 is. If you visit Simple Machines Community forums (http://www.simplemachines.org/community/) and look at how many users their forums have online, they kinda have to optimize the code for large forums. :drevil:
-
SMF is fully scalable now that 1.1 RC2 is available. I might have recommended phpBB in the past, but they've dragged their feet so much that they're quite far behind. I'm sure that when they release phpBB 2.2, it will be much more competitive, but for now, SMF wins by a mile.
-
phpBB is a pain to configure and template.
-
Well the people have spoken, and so shall it be.
-
So when do we get the cool HLP look back? :p
-
I'm slightly confused. Which is the newer and better package: 1.07 or 1.1 RC2? I've downloaded and installed 1.07, just because it seemed to be the newest version on their download page, but looking at the numbers that doesn't make sense.
-
Having lots of experience with multiple forum software I must shout out some love to PunBB (http://www.punbb.org) which is my fave and the best one out there.
SMF is very good, it's speedy and secure, I recommend it if you want a few more bells and whistles than Pun.
Steer clear of PHPbb.
-
1.07 is the latest stable version. 1.1 RC2 is the most up-to-date version, with the latest features, etc. It's still getting some bugs worked out of it, apparently, but we're running it here and haven't encountered anything show-stopping that I know of. I'd recommend 1.1 RC2.
-
Having lots of experience with multiple forum software I must shout out some love to PunBB (http://www.punbb.org) which is my fave and the best one out there.
:yes: I really like how PunBB has clean html. Makes the CSS really worthwhile.
-
SMF is fairly good in that regard as well, though it does still have some extra crap. FYI, I altered the default SMF 1.1 theme to this current HLP theme purely through CSS changes - didn't touch the template file itself.
-
Having lots of experience with multiple forum software I must shout out some love to PunBB (http://www.punbb.org) which is my fave and the best one out there.
:yes: I really like how PunBB has clean html. Makes the CSS really worthwhile.
The mantra is minimalist and very fuctional, which I think works superbly, I havn't seen another forum software pull it off quite as well.
-
PunBB is maybe a bit too minimalistic to my liking, it requires a number of modifications which really should be already bundled with the software, or at least I'm getting that impression. I think PunBB is good for small forums, but there's no word how well it would scale and perform when forums get big, at least I didn't see any information regarding this.
-
I've ran a pretty big forum on it before, and even with an absolutely abysmal hosting package I had absoluetly no problems with it.
It's fine for large forums, and the only thing I can think of that should be in it by default is PMs, but the mod is pretty easy to install anyway.
I can inderstand your concerns about busy forums though. You were using VB before ffs. :lol:
-
You were using VB before ffs. :lol:
Obsolete v2.something, it was breaking down under the weight. When the vB database was converted to SMF, the converter restored so much lost or intentionally deleted information, such as private messages that our faces went :wtf:. God knows how ****ed up the database would've been if we hadn't moved to SMF when we did.
-
VBbulletin FTW
It is everything u could possibly want and more.
-
Eh, vBulletin's licensing sucks. Owner's license costs $160 and then $30 each year to get updates. :ick:
-
VB is also not in the least bit designed with large communities in mind, it's stupidly slow on it's own. If you want to spend that kind of money for no real reason then you're better off with Invision to be honest. Even if you can, at the moment, SMF is a better solution.