Top Forum Hosting Scripts

Please note these are in no particular order.

1. vBulletin

Engaging

• Enticing content discovery
• More content generation
• Engaging social functionality
• Streamlined photos & videos

Easy

• Launch site in as little as 15 min.
• Easily customized page templates
• Extensive personalization
• Optimized mobile experience

Robust

• Excellent moderation control
• Built-in SEO
• Strong security
• World-class support

Cloud

• Easy, non-technical site admin
• Hardware & hosting provided
• All key functionality included
• Low cost and no commitment

2. PhpBB

THE #1 FREE, OPEN SOURCE BULLETIN BOARD SOFTWARE

phpBB is a free flat-forum bulletin board software solution that can be used to stay in touch with a group of people or can power your entire website. With an extensive database of user-created modifications and styles database containing hundreds of style and image packages to customise your board, you can create a very unique forum in minutes.

No other bulletin board software offers a greater complement of features, while maintaining efficiency and ease of use. Best of all, phpBB is completely free. We welcome you to test it for yourself today. If you have any questions please visit our Community Forum where our staff and members of the community will be happy to assist you with anything from configuring the software to modifying the code for individual needs. Learn more about phpBB.

3. InvisionPower

Why we're the best choice for communities

Just a few of the highlights... there's much more!

Hugely configurable

Set your community up precisely for your needs. Almost every aspect can be enabled or disabled, with many configuration options.

Monetization options

Monetize your community with advertisement support, or add IP.Nexus to sell subscriptions & physical products.

Developer friendly

Customize our software with your own integrations, apps and hooks. You can even sell your creations in our Marketplace.

SEO built in

Search Engine Optimization is built into the foundation. Help search engines index your great content, and help users find it.

4. VanillaForums - Download Vanilla

5. MyBB

MyBB is the free and open source, intuitive, extensible, and incredibly powerful forum software you've been looking for.

With everything from forums to threads, posts to private messages, search to profiles, and reputation to warnings, MyBB features everything you need to run an efficient and captivating community. Through plugins and themes, you can extend MyBB's functionality to build your community exactly as you'd like it.
Learn more about MyBB's features →

Complete control

MyBB's extensive Admin Control Panel gives you the power to tweak your forum to just how you like it.

Discussion-centered

Much care and attention has been given to the entire software to keep discussions in the forefront.

Personal and interactive

Private messages let you share a conversation with just a small group of people.

Clean, simple, and powerful

Don't let MyBB's ease of use fool you. It packs powerful features without any of the clutter.

6. SimpleMachines

Simple Machines Forum — SMF in short — is a free, professional grade software package that allows you to set up your own online community within minutes.

Its powerful custom made template engine puts you in full control of the layout of your message board and with our unique SSI - or Server Side Includes - function you can let your forum and your website interact with each other.

SMF is written in the popular language PHP and uses a MySQL database. It is designed to provide you with all the features you need from a bulletin board while having an absolute minimal impact on the resources of the server. SMF is the next generation of forum software - and best of all it is and will always remain completely free!

7. FluxBB

luxBB is fast, light, user-friendly forum software for your website.

FluxBB is designed as a lighter, faster alternative to some of the traditional feature heavy forum applications. It is easy to use and has a proven track record of stability and security making it an ideal choice of forum for your website.

8. MiniBB

What is miniBB?

miniBB® is a standalone, open source program for building your own Internet forum, it's free to download and highly customizable. Comparing to the other forum software available on the market, miniBB just brings what it's created for: an easy, lite, and speedy quick forum. If you want a simple and stable message board attached to your existing website at the deepest integration level, incl. the customization of the layout to the look of your website, or even synchronizing with the existing membership system, you've just came across to the forum solution, developed exactly for such purpose.

9. PunBB

10. UseBB
UseBB.net is the website of UseBB 1, a classic PHP 4 based bulletin board package, currently out of development (bug fix releases only).

11. Phorum

Phorum, The Original PHP and MySQL Forum Software

Started in 1998, Phorum was the original PHP and MySQL based Open Source forum software. Phorum's developers pride themselves on creating message board software that is designed to meet different needs of different web sites while not sacrificing performance or features.

12. The Unclassified Newsboard
Introducing

The Unclassified NewsBoard (short UNB) is an open-source, PHP-based internet bulletin board system, mostly like those you may already know. But the difference is in a lot of details that make your life with this board, both as administrator and user, much easier. You’ll be surprised how easy things can be and how fast you can work with such a system! The Unclassified NewsBoard has a lot of innovative features the world has never seen before in this way. I run this project in my spare time, mostly because about ten years ago, none of the freely available forum systems fully convinced me and because I found fun in that job.

Paid Forum Boards

1. Easy Forum Script 

Easy forum is a ready script for forums. It’s easy to integrate and install in any website. Users can interact with each other by starting subjects on rooms that they want and by leaving comments. With Responsive web design the website can be accessed from any device.

1. Services that EasyForum Offers

a- List of Categories: The website has several Categories of forums this categories are added by Admins example: Sport, Cinema, Anime, and Music…

b- List of Rooms: Each category has a list of rooms under it, this rooms are added by Admins or users who can request to add new ones and it will be approved or declined by Admins example of rooms on the Sport Category: Soccer, Tennis and Basketball…

c- List of Subjects: each room has a list of subject created by users. These subjects are simply some questions or news that other users can comment to help the user who asked

.
List of actions that a connected user can do:
1- Login to his home page.
2- View Categories, Rooms and Subjects.
3- Update his profile information.
4- Request for new Rooms.
5- Create new subjects.
6- Comment on subjects.
7- Like subjects and comments.
8- Share subjects on other social network.
9- Choose best comment for his/her subjects.
10- Close his/her subjects: when closing a subject no one can add comments to it.
11- Open his/her subjects.
12- Delete his/her subjects.
13- Edit his/her subjects.
14- Report subjects as spam.
15- Get notifications when someone commented or liked his subjects and comments.
16- Subscribe to rooms so he/she will get updates concerning subjects on that room.
17- …

List of actions that a guest user can do:
1- View Categories, Rooms, Subjects and Comments.
2- Share some subjects on other Social network.
3- That’s all no other action besides viewing can be done.

List of actions that an admin can do.
1- View Categories, Rooms, Subjects and Comments.
2- Create new categories.
3- Create new rooms.
4- Approve adding room request.
5- Decline adding room request.
6- Delete categories.
7- Delete rooms.
8- Delete subjects.
9- Delete comments.
10- Manage reported subjects .
11- Add new admins.
12- Change admins role: Master or Normal.
13- Delete admins.
14- Update profile info.
15- Manage Users : Enable, Disable or Delete them.
16- Close subjects.

Purchase

2. Tractor Forum

Tractor is a simple PHP and MySQL based internet forum. The main claim of this web forum is simplicity. Furthermore it should be easy to install and run on a standard server configuration with PHP and MySQL.

Features

• Unlimited categories
• Markdown support in posts, comments, profiles
• Using Limonade Framework 0.5.0
• Recent Posts in all categories

Purchase

3. Cinnamon Boards

Cinnamon Boards is a forum/message board PHP script with a light footprint, responsive structure and user accessibility.

The message board uses a single database table, and all information is structured as a forum (with no categories). It can easily be integrated into other scripts or sites, without losing any of its functionality.

Cinnamon Boards allows you to create a customized community that rewards positive participation.

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4. Forumium - Fully Responsive Forum Script

Features:

• CAN BE TRANSLATED
• MULTI-LANGUAGE SYSTEM
• AUTO SPAMMER DETECTOR
• FACEBOOK LOGIN
• USER ACTIVATION OPTION
• NEW BETTER ADMIN PANEL
• BAN IP/USER SYSTEM
• NEW MAIL SYSTEM
• NEW MEMBERSHIP – ELITE MEMBER
• Many more…>

Other:
-Fully Resposnive Design
-Very Fast
-Made by using the most used framework for 2013-2014 Laravel. Really good framework
-Full Protection Against XSS,CSRF,SQL Injections
-Big Documentation With Start Guide
-3 Types of membership (Normal,Moderator,Admin)
-Big Admin Panel
-Site Configuration inside the Admin Panel
-You can configure the background
-You can choose between 6 awesome themes.
-As administrator/moderator you can mute users, close topics, delete/edit topics/categories/replies.
-Configurable Terms of Service. If it’s switch on the user must accept TOS in order to register
-You can edit the replies/topics/categories that you have created.
-Forgot password option.
-Online users widget.
-You can report topic/user/reply.
-You can edit site title/description.

Purchase

5. Simple Forums - Responsive Bulletin Board

Simple Forum Features

• Simple and reponsive layout that make it easy to use on computers, laptops, tablets and mobiles.
• SEO Friendly
• Login with Facebook
• Secured for spamming with captcha
• Local Avatars
• Sticky discussion will be display first the all other will be sorted by date.
• WYSIWYG Editor
  • Easily style your posts.
  • Image Upload
  • File Upload
  • Add Videos
• Add Smileys to your posts
• Option to close/delete the discussions/posts
• Option to make the post publically available OR Private (private post can be view by creator, modierators and admins).
• Moderators allowed to view/add/edit/delete and reply to all posts. But you can choose the setting in adminarea.
• Manage users, categories, FAQs from adminarea.
• Settings page to easily change/update forum settings.
• 3 user level, Admin, Moderators and members.
• Public or Memeber only FAQs.
• Add announcement from admin area.
• Close new user registration.

Purchase

6. Simple Bulletin Board

Features

• Protecting forum from non-registered users
• Private Messages System since V3.0
• Like Posts since V3.25/V4.2
• Don’t Posts since V3.25/V4.2
• Share Posts on social networks (Facebook, Gogle+, Twitter) since V3.25/V4.2
• Different permissions (view/post/reply) for different forums (including guests) since V3.0
• automatically resizeing of uploaded avatars since V3.0
• Indicating new topics since V3.0
• Added defaultXHTML template since V3.0
• Added CarbonCity template (dark XHTML) since V3.0
• Added Silk template (dark XHTML) since V3.0
• Added sLime template (dark XHTML) since V3.2
• Added Marabellow template (dark XHTML) since V3.2
• Added Velvet template (dark XHTML) since V3.2
• Add users in the board administration since V3.0
• External statistics module since V3.0
• External last topics module since V3.0
• External board avatars since V3.0
• Possibility to order (asc/desc) users by name, joining date, last login in userlists since V3.0
• Enable/Disable registration since V1.5
• Online board Administration since V1.5
• Enable/Disable user to user messaging since V1.5
• SEO links and titles since V1.5
• Categories (forums) for your board since V1.5
• Overall search function since V1.5
• Protecting from doubleposts caused by reloading or double-clicks or smthg. else since V1.4
• Topics can be made to sticky ones since V1.4
• Threads can bed locked (closed) since V1.4
• enable/disable CAPTCHA-protection for registration (thx phpcaptcha.org -> GD Library with GIF Support required) since V1.1
• GD-CAPTCHA alternative, for those their server doesn’t support the GD-Library – same lookalike since V1.45
• reCAPTCHA as third captcha module since V3.25/V4.2
• enable/disable/set number of topics per page since V1.1
• Avatars can be uploaded by users to their profiles since V1.3
• Signatures can be defined by users since V1.3
• Own templates can be defined
• PNG-sources for the buttons are integrated
• Users can register themself and are able to post topics immediately after registration and logging in
• Administrators can make users to Administrators, Moderators and Default users
• Moderators are able to delete posts, delete complete topics, activate/deactivate/edit/delete users
• Adminfeature: moving topics since V3.1
• Adminfeature: multi topic management since V3.1
• Users can enable/disable board and user notifications
• Users can contact other users via the board (if notification enabled)
• Users will be notified if one of their active topics got a new post
• BB-Code for topics and posts is implemented
• Youtube Support since V2.0
• Vimeo Support since V3.2
• Attachments since V2.0
• Polls since V2.0
• RSS-Feeds since V2.0
• TextExports since V2.0
• Useractivation by User, by Admin, disabled since V2.0
• Whoisonline Block on frontpage since V2.0
• BoardStatistics on frontpage since V2.0
• Posts can be edited by users within defined timeslot (or not ) since V2.0
• Pagination for topics, posts, users and search results since V2.0
• Gravatar Support since V2.0
• Default Avatars since V2.0
• External Smilies since V2.0
• Multilanguage support English and German language support (filebased)

Purchase

7. Just a Forum

Just a Forum helps you set up a knowledge base for your users where they can share what they know about your products or site with each other. This script helps you quickly set up a forum that will help you save on the cost and time for support.
Features:

• Quick and easy installation. All you have to do is access one page and provide log-in information for an administrator
• Users have to register after which the can ask and answer questions
• Users can follow discussion by simply clicking a button
• Allow the users to report posts and you as administrator can delete the post or ignore the report
• All publicly accessible forms are protected by captcha to prevent spam
• The script has an authentication system that allows for registration, signing-in and signin-out, and retrieving lost passwords
• As an administrator you can easily ban users that cause trouble
• You can create categories to sort the posts in
• The script gives users recognition based on their participation. It keeps count of the answers they give and the likes they receive from other users.
• Users can easily access all the questions that they have asked
• A simple and attractive user interface
• The HTML files for the script are all in one place and separate from the code making it easy for you to modify. The HTML is all Twitter Bootstrap.
• All the text that is displayed in all the pages of the script is in one file making it very easy to translate

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Extra

8. Facebook Forum

Faceforo is a discussion board for Facebook pages (fan pages, company pages etc). Works like normal forum scripts but for sure it does not has the features of vBulletin, IPB, xenForo etc etc. But as you can read below, the most important features are including
PS: My 8 years experiance on developing AddOns for vBulletin™ (my portfolio has 35+ such addons), guarantees that if not now, some day in the near future, faceforo will becomes the most powerful forum for facebook™.

Features

Unlimited Forum Categories, with unlimited depth (subforums)

Unlimited Usergroups with ability to specify different permissions for each usergroup

Uses Smarty template engine for easy modifications.

Post, Edit, Delete, Reply, Quote based on Usergroup permissions

Sticky threads

Icon identifier for threads

Visual Editor for text formatting

Ability to attach Images and Files

Powerful Search form

Sharing in Facebook wall

Subscribe/Unsubscribe to threads (notifications are posting to user’s timeline

Powerful Admin control panel

Latest threads, Sticky Threads, Popular threads in Homepage

User Info block in Homepage

Top posters, Just join us in Homepage

Statistics and Users Online in Homepage

.

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9. BBPRess

Forums, made the WordPress way

bbPress is forum software with a twist from the creators of WordPress. Easily setup discussion forums inside your WordPress.org powered site.

Download bbPress →

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Simple Setup

Easy to setup.
Easy to moderate.
Fast, and clean.

Fully Integrated

One central account.
One unified admin area.
One click install.

Single Installation

Simple step-by-step installation walks you through your options.

Multisite Forums

Divide your site into sections. Allow your users to create content.

BBPress Addons

Cinnamon Boards - Integrated WordPress Forums

Cinammon Boards is a WordPress forum plugin with a light footprint, responsive structure and user accessibility. The forum uses custom post types and all information is structured as a forum (categories, forums and topics). It can easily be integrated into any theme without losing any of its functionality.

Cinnamon Boards acts like a real forum, with categories, forums, topics, threads and messages, but it is heavily integrated into WordPress, taking advantage of the user/author system, Akismet and theme blending.

Cinnamon Boards works out of the box, with no options to set, except for the creation of categories and forums.

Demo http://getbutterfly.com/forums/

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bbPress Thanks - WordPress Plugin

bbPress Thanks is a WordPress plugin that works with bbPress forums and it’s inspired by the popular vBulletin Thank You extension. It places a text area field in the forms used to create a new topic or reply or edit an existing one. Content entered here is hidden from users and only visible when they thank the content, click a Thanks button. The user who authored the content and moderators can always see the content.

How it Works

A forum participant enters content using the text area Hidden Content added by bbPress Thanks in topic or reply forms:

Another forum user sees the topic or reply. Content is not directly shown in the topic or reply. Instead, a message stating that there’s hidden content plus a Thanks button is shown. If other users thanked and received the content before, they are shown too:

User clicks the Thanks button and content is revealed:

Finally, user name is added to the list of thanking users.

Features

• textarea element for topic and reply forms to enter the hidden content
• hidden content entered by users is only visible to themselves, moderators and other forum participants that show appreciation by clicking the Thanks button
• option to load the page with any hidden content initially collapsed and an arrow to expand and view it
• display a few user names and put the rest in a collapsible area
• or show only how many users thanked the content, without user names
• name displayed is what users select in User Profile > Display Name
• meta box in topic or reply editing screen in WP Admin to edit the hidden content
• customize colors from plugin settings page using visual controls
• enter Custom CSS in settings page to closely match your site’s appearance
• developers can take advantage of the WordPress filters and Javascript event included
• font icons that look great in normal and high density displays like Retina display
• support for Right-to-Left (RTL) languages
• complete documentation
• friendly and experienced support

Purchase

bbPress Private Content WordPress Plugin

Private Content is a WordPress plugin that works with bbPress forums. It places a text area field in the forms to create a new topic or reply or editing an existing one. Private content entered here is hidden from users and only visible to moderators and the user who authored the topic or reply with the private content.
This is useful for example if you run a support forum where your users need to share sensitive information and you don’t want to disrupt the thread flow asking a user to send it to a private email address. Users can enter the private information in this field and it will be kept hidden for everyone but the moderator and themselves.
If you allow topic or reply editing, users can edit this information at any time editing the thread entry.
If you’ve previously bought one of my plugins, this is the same plugin in use in the support forums.

Features

• textarea element for topic and reply forms to enter private information
• only moderators and the user who entered the private information can see it
• option to load the page with any private content initially collapsed and an arrow to expand and view it
• customize colors from plugin settings page using visual controls
• enter Custom CSS in settings page to closely match your site’s appearance
• developers can take advantage of the filters included
• font icons that look great in normal and high density displays like Retina display
• support for Right-to-Left (RTL) languages
• complete documentation
• friendly and experienced support

Purchase