Free Forum Software for Social Networking and Communities

As internet grows many people sign up to specific forums and social networks and webmaster who has specific community interest can benefit from this social involvement. In order to create community forum around specific interest you need to use forum software. Many forum softwares are available in both paid and free form to webmasters. If you need professional quality software then you should always choose paid software but if you're on low budget then there are some free forum softwares as well. Free softwares are not always good but they usually get the job done.

There are some things to note before you select any forum software -

• Security Updates - This should be on your top priority list. Many free and paid forum softwares get hacked because there are some security leaks in their software.
• Plugins and Mods - When it comes to extending functionality of forum you need to use Mod. Mods make sure that you can do specific task on your forum. For example, in order to share revenue using ads you can use forum mod for specific forum software.
• Design - This is one more criteria which you need to consider because many forum softwares are hard to skin for newbies or for intermediate users. If you want to select forum software then make sure themes or skins are easy to do.

Simple Machines Forum

As of Jan.2011 this software is still in beta 2.0 because of developer and management issue. Keeping those issues aside this software has small learning curve and any newbie can install and start community in few minutes.

• Security - Despite of slow development patches to security holes are made quickly to this forum.
• Themes - Default theme is very simple yet beautiful for any basic forum. You can easily create your own theme for simple machines if you know CSS and HTML.
• Mods - There are tons of mods present that lets you manage your community easily.

if you're newbie to programming and computers then SMF is one good software to use and invest time.

Vanilla

This is simple yet feature rich forum software that is very easy to customize, SEO friendly and quick to load. Vanilla has many features similar to social networking site and answers site. You can even add facebook signon and other features using plugins. Security updates are regular as product is actively developed and released.

PunBB

This is small, simple and fast loading forum software. Though it's less actively developed these days but atleast it is in working state. You can easily customize this software for your design and SEO needs.

PhpBB

This is one of the popular forum software which is used by many webmasters out there. Personally i don't use this software because there are lot of security risks from mods and they get easily hacked. Still, this forum software is available in many hosting services and is preferred by those who are new to forum softwares.

FluxBB

This software is simple and very good at performance and SEO. You can customize it to have SEO friendly URL's, Simple design and integrate it with many other CMS out there. Security patches are periodic and are fixed immediately when spotted. Simple basic theme is good for design framework and you can literally design many complex themes using it.

MyBB

Like PhpBB and PunBB this forum software also focuses on traditional layout and typical forum features. There are many active mod developers working on mybb and so you'll get lots of additional featuers with this forum software. It's not SEO friendly unless tweaked well but it's one good forum software nonetheless.

MiniBB

It is lightweight forum software which focuses on simple interface with effective features which can be used instead of useless features. My vote goes to minibb for their constant efforts on security, speed and simple interface.

First thing you should do is avoid bickering threads and posts which are labeled like 'phpbb vs smf' etc. These threads rarely add anything valuable to the table and goes off track plenty of times. Read the below checklist before you select the forum software

• Active development - Many forums softwares are now abandoned by developers due to lack if interest and funds. Make sure you select the forum software which is actively developed.
• Security - Software needs to be updated regularly for security holes and patched immediately. See if the developer community of software is active enough for security patches.
• Simplicity - Make sure forum software is easy to learn and use for both you and forum users. Avoid forum softwares which has learning curve for you and users for posting threads and replies.
• Mods (Plugins) - You need plugins for SEO and many other forum management functionality. Make sure there are some developers who develop mods for that forum software.
• Themes - Theme building should be easy for newbies and intermediate users. If not easy then atleast there should be group of designers active on their developer site that can do commercial design projects.

If you stick with simplicity and mods then there is nothing more you need to look for from modern free forum softwares. Hope these tips helped you select the right forum software.