UseBB Community

In your opinion which is currently the best forum software including commercial forum software and free software out there?
IMO, I think IPB is the best commercial software. For free software, I'd say phpbb even though I dont like it. Its still very good.
I hope someday USEBB gets ranked up there.

MyTopix for both

IPB has been my favourite for the past few years.

For commercial software I tend to say UBB.x. IMO it's way in front of other commercial packages. It has many features but a very clean layout that's even easier than the current layout of UseBB. (Perhaps UseBB will meet that level of usability soon.) UBB.x is a part of Infopop's Eve solution offering some more services next to the forum software. Only I almost never see Eve really being used, probably because it's always hosted by Infopop itself, and it costs at least $25 a month, which is very expensive. After all I have great respect for Infopop as they were about the first ones creating web-based forum software (UBB.classic and UBB.threads are also great packages).

For Open Source software I almost everytime stick to SMF (former YaBB SE), but phpBB isn't bad at all too, especially phpBB 3.0 (used to be 2.1/2.2).

IPB and phpBB respectively.

SMF isn't Open Source... why do people keep saying that it is?

Indeed, SMF isn't Open Source, but YaBB SE was. That's why most people (including me) still say that SMF is OSS.

The Wolf wrote

SMF isn't Open Source... why do people keep saying that it is?

actually it is "limited" open sources AFAIK, I was thinking about SMF a few day ago because it didn't have a license attached in the zip, looks like they lewis made their own limited open sources license limiting the user to redistribute the package etc etc

IPB and phpBB

IPB (but I like vB3's skin better.. but only sometimes!)
phpBB (I like this skin the most, it's clean and inviting)

I judge a forum by its cover, then delve into its features

However, I just looked at MyTopix and I liked its cover.

I would say vB is my favourite comercial but GPL i stick to useBB though it's lack of features it's a really amazing script and I used to use phpBB but there was something i diden't lika about it, so almost everytime i see a phpBB board i don't want to join... Why is this!? Don't know

I always ask myself what's so special about MyTopix... :d

I checked out MyTopix looked like all the other Bulletin Boards out there And i dont like when ranka, avatar etc. is on the top of the post and not on the side. Avatars ,ranks, posts, location and such things are only an extra thing it's the content of the message that means something so i think the "extras" should be left on the side

There already are a dozen of BB's who mimic vB's new topic layout. And for the rest many of them look like merges between vB and IPB...

well yeah but i guess it's kinda hard to create a post layou wich is not like the BB's released

I have nothing against it but some just want to clone vB or IPB... There's no or less originality.

Why im a bit against it is maybe just because i've never used or been active on a forum with that kind of layout

I do but on one they made an additional theme with a classic topic view, so you can choose which layout you want. On another forum they also made a custom skin but did not keep the so called horizontal one. I don't know why they chose to change this in vB3, it really doesn't make it more readable.

i think i'll make a usebb skin whit the vB3 style post so user wich prefer it can have that version of the default skin

well it's now available at the resources forum ... .. And i also had this question.. anyone tried IceBB ? It looks alot like IPB and it seems to be quite feature rich what do you other guys think of it?