I am looking to create a forum site to use in supporting my WordPress themes.
So far I have looked over bbPress, PunBB, Vanilla and Simple Machines Forum (SMF).
The requirements for the forum software:
- Easy to use (for admin and users)
- Easy to theme or style
- Search capabilities
- Easily integrates with CMS solution (TXP, WP, etc.)
- Clean URLs would be a plus
PunBB seems to have a lot of features and I have seen a lot of people I respect using it. I have only tried a demo of SMF, but I have heard some good things about it. Vanilla seems fairly simple. However, I have heard the Vanilla template engine is kind of a pain to work with. I honestly wanted to use bbPress, just because of its ties with WordPress. Can you tell I am frustrated by the rambling?
Has anyone built or used a forum and have any suggestions on which forum software to use? Any opinions or suggestions would be greatly appreciated.
13 Comments
Among your choices, as a user, I prefer to SMF
bbPress and Vanilla are no-no (again, as a user)
PunBB looks great too but I think SMF is more expandable?
If I’d set up my own forum, I’ll use SMF (many people I know switch from phpBB/IPB to SMF) or phpBB (old school and I heard many bad things about it but I’m most familiar with it as an Admin, also, I’ve some hope in phpBB3)
Thanks for the input Nice!
I will have to take a better look at SMF. It seems powerful. Do you know anything about the template engine or the ease of integration with SMF?
http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/wp-smf-a-simplemachines-bridge/
I don’t know if it’s copatible with WP2.3, and it looks complicate (for me)
sorry I don’t know much about its template engine.
The only forums I used to admin are phpBB and XMB
uhh, to rethink about it
SMF is for “community”
but if you just want an easy way to support user
I think bbPress is just fine, no fancy looks but surely easiest to integrate with WordPress
http://www.wp-united.com/ for phpBB integration
I’ve tried bbpress and vanilla in the past. Both are easy to use and a bit ‘different’.
Punbb and smf look and feel more like a traditional forum.
So I guess it depends on what you want to do here? Do you want to start some sort of communitything ot do you just want a place where users can ask for support?
I think bbpress or vanilla would work better with your current blog.
@ Nice - Thanks for the integration information. I suppose I am looking more to integrate the look and feel of the forum and the CMS rather than the users and permissions. Those integration options may come to good use in future client work though.
@Stefson - I believe you’re right. I am not looking to start a community. This is a mostly personal site and I don’t intend on changing that or additional bloggers, etc…
The main goal of the forum will be a place were users can ask for support on my themes and some general WordPress things. Providing support via the comments on the theme pages isn’t really that efficient or practical. There are enough comments now, people just skip to the bottom and post a question. A forum should make it easier to search for issues / answers to commonly asked questions. Does that make sense?
bbPress will probably be powerful enough for a theme support forum and shouldn’t be too hard to style.
Thank you both for your recommendations.
Makes sense to me.
Take a look at this forum, which is also powered by bbpress.
http://www.blogohblog.com/forums/
It’s styled to match the look of the blog. And pretty well I might add.
That’s what I like about bbpress, the simplicity.
The Blog Oh! Blog forum is styled nicely. I am going to install bbPress and take a closer look.
I love simplicity too! Thanks again!
I love PunBB for its easy integration with CMS.
Thanks for your input Shawn.
I am now torn between the power of punBB and the simplicity and template engine of bbpress.
I just found the Support Forums plugin for bbpress that may have me leaving towards it. Then again, I really like the user email subscriptions and avatars built into punBB.
I think either system will be suitable for a support forum. punBB is a much more powerful solution out of the box.
I have installed both and am doing some testing now.
Hi Will!
For styling purposes stay away from SMF! In my experience it’s too heavy for this kind of projects.
Go for punBB: is absolutely lightweight, well-coded and has behind a great community. I didnt’ try BBpress but it also looks good.
Even if i’m late: Happy New Year!
Thanks for the suggestion Laburno and Happy New Year to you.
I think I have decided on bbPress. It is extremely fast and the theme / plugin architecture is a lot like that of WordPress. punBB is great, but I think bbPress will the simplest solution for support requests, etc.
I have the forums installed now with some plugins and a slightly modified theme, if anyone wants to take a look - http://forums.iamww.com/.
I like it. I really do. Great use of colours.
A joy for the eyes.
Simple and to the point. That’s the way I like my forums
Nice work Will.
Thanks Stefson! Maybe I will find some more time soon to really tweak it out. It will always stay simple and to the point!