How to Choose a Best Web Forum Software

Do You want to install a web forum section of Your website as an online community hangout place? Then what You need is a best, reliable forum management system. Many ready-to-setup web forum software packages currently available, either proprietary or open source. Which one is the best choice? The answer can be vary. It depend on what your need for its scalability, solid back-end technology, stability, and core features included.

One of the most prominent internet forum software is vBulletin. vBulletin used by 61% of the largest 2,000 internet forums, including DigitalPoint, RottenTomatoes, Cruise Critic, and DoItYourself.com. vBulletin was developed using PHP and MySQL database server. Other well known forum softwares are phpBB, FUDForum, and more.

What should we expect from a good web forum software? A good forum software should provide to us any functionalities that available by default as core features, not just as additional features. Forum software core features including:

Linear forum and threaded forum support

A forum software should can either support flat (linear) or threaded methods, or both. A flat forum is a method where each message added onto the end of the discussion, with no set relation to any prior messages. A threaded forum is a method allowing multiple discussion threads to evolve from a single initial discussion item.

Good forum software also support features such as BB Code in posts, HTML in post, Smilies, Avatars, Optional WYSIWYG or standard editors for posts and Private Messages, Quick reply box (with optional "forced" click on post to quote), Post rating, Polls, Post Reporting - report posts to moderators, User post count, and Admin tools for Posts (edit/delete/move/ etc), and more.

Selectable forum themes support

A good forum software should provide an option for the owner to customize the forum layout, color, and design with any theme(s) available. Some forums softwares allow the administrator to create their own themes, and allow the user to choose which one they wish to view.

Calendar support

A forum software should provide calendar functionality for storing events and appointments, supports multiple private and public calendars, show events to specific usergroups (adminCP option), jump to today option, calendar moderation, viewable public and private events (adminCP option), etc.

Unread message tracking support

Unread message tracking is a feature that is used by forum software to track and display messages that have not yet been read by the current user.

Duplicate thread prevention

The fact that many noob forum users usually directly create new threads for asking a question and do not bother to search for similar threads, lead to duplicate threads problem. Google Groups forum invent a new way to reduce redundant threads and therefore helping moderation of forums, so when user types a new thread subject, similar threads automatically showed on the side. Duplicate thread prevention feature helps keep the number of redundant threads to a lower level.

Attachment Management

Forum software should provide the option for users to upload an attachment (i.e images) along with posting, view attachment statistics, shows limit and used space, view the attachments they have posted (link or thumbnail views), and to remove attachments. Attachment usually accompanied by a space limit (eg: 2MB per user) to prevent users from filling up the forum host's webspace.

Paid subscription support

Some forum owners may want to add special paid membership or paid subscription feature to their forum. So he need a forum software that provide capability to handle paid subscriptions using PayPal, WorldPay, Google Checkout, NOCHEX, Authorize.net, etc).