Paid Discussion Forum Vs Non-paid Discussion Forum

[Flow]

Hi all

I was wondering if anyone could enlighten me as to which is better and why, for example a free forum from Simple Machines or a paid one like Thaivisa's....

I need a discussion forum for my biz but I don't know which is most suited. I will definitely need other businesses to be able to post commercial ads on the forum that's for sure.... and may be some banners from sponsors in the future...

Recommendations - Anyone?

Or perhaps, George... the godfather of all Thailand based farang discussion forums - some input, please?

Thanks

[OxfordWill]

a free forum tells your customers you didnt have the money to pay for one, regardless of if that is the case or not. IF you just want to faciliate discussion, phpbb or SMF is fine. If you will want your forum to be integral to the promotion of your product or service then invest in a license for vbulletin because the people who know the difference will take note.

[cdnvic]

I disagree. First of all, 97% of people have no clue what's what with forum software, and if money spent made a difference to them they'd turn their nose up at people hosted on open-source powered servers (which a majority are). What's important is what works. I've used Invision, SMF, vBulletin, phpBB, Ikonboard, and Vanilla. Out of all of them Invision, and SMF come out on top (Vanilla being very stable but a crappy layout). I opted for SMF because it is more configurable, easy to upgrade, and by choosing the option of paying only $40yr (The software itself is still free) you can have it fully supported by SMF techs.

Invision is top quality, but in my opinion it's licensing has become expensive and too restrictive. It's still at the top of my list though as it's very well designed.

To be fair, I've never run an SMF site that had to deal with the kind of numbers I see on big sites like Thaivisa, but there are sites with over 100,000 members running on SMF.

http://rankings.big-boards.com/?filter=SMF,all

phpBB is one to avoid as it is less configurable and seems to have the most vulnerabilities of all the major forum software.

Don't worry about what you pay, or what a minuscule amount of people will think if you run a forum on free software (those people will just turn out to me nitpickers and whingers you don't need as members anyway). What will ultimately make your board a success is the content.

Good luck.

[OxfordWill]

Yes most people will not know, perhaps not as much as 97%, but as I said to those that do know, it does tend to matter. You will notice that all profitable companies tend toward the same helpdesk software - i.e. kayako, since it has barely no commercial competition yet hundreds of just as good if not better open source competitiors. You could put some of it down to middle management needing to spend money in order to justify a choice ("What? It's free? Jenkins, I gave you a budget for a reason!").

Certain internet niche markets do turn their noses up at open source, in certain situations:

You must always have in the back of your mind that experienced internet users are constantly on the look out for ANY sign that your company might be just a 14 year old in his parent's garage. You need to put money on the table to help reassure your potential and existing customers that somebody in your business is serious about providing a reliable service/product. Using open source software for business is therefore a risk which given the cost of invision etc is unnecessary in my opinion.

I say it depends on your business but if you are aiming high, do as the big boys do - spend some cash.

Just two differing opinions there for you anyway As cndvic says it also matters which works and phpbb2 has a poor rep, although Ive used it on a forum with 1000+ uniques daily without any major problems, you just have to stay on top of the upgrades. I also run SMF on a small forum and it has worked fine. However for all my business related sites I run invision and if you develop a large community in phpbb or smf etc and then want to upgrade it can be a hassle to do so although not impossible.

Also agree that content is what drives forums, but it was my interpretation that the OP was not trying to make a popular forum but rather supplement his existing business with a forum, which is a different matter. ("I need a discussion forum for my biz")

Edited May 17, 2007 by OxfordWill

[cdnvic]

That is one nice thing about Invision is the addons like blogs, galleries, and such integrate so well together. Makes your site look a bit more professional if you are running more than just a forum.

[Crushdepth]

Another option that may be worth considering is to use a content management system that includes a forum as an installable 'module'. That way you can integrate the forum into a supporting website that offers other features/services. You gain a lot of flexibility this way (although it is more complex).

Free vs non-free - also consider the cost of future software upgrades. Absolutely no need to use commercial forum software, there are plenty of good open source products available.

[Flow]

Thanks for the input people!

[Grover]

despite what others say, the latest version of phpbb2 is stable and secure.

you might want to consider the upcoming phpBB3 which looks very impressive, its a modern piece of forum software, and should be released very soon.

[cdnvic]

The amount of vulnerabilities found in phpbb2 has been staggering compared to other forum software. I don't like their record of websites being defaced in the thousands by worm attacks, and would much rather go with proven reliability over promises of future versions.

[OxfordWill]

To be fair to phpbb devs, any software, when out of date, gets exploited. Its part of the job of webmaster. This point transcends whether or not you pay for something. Notable example: modernbill, AWBS, whmap. All paid for and all exploitable the second you forget to update them. The fact you hear so much about phpbb being exploited is testament only to its popularity and not a sign of it being somehow less well written.