Im looking to try my hand at my first website mainly a Foortball/Soccer Forum. So whats the best free and the best paid forum tool, I would like to integrate it so thats it's not just a forum but i can have a front page to post latest newss etc.

Remembering all the time I have no idea about these things.

Thanks in advance

Best Paid forum script its Vbulletin

Free.. Hmmm.. SMF http://www.simplemachines.org/

Hi!

FREE FORUMS
1) SMF
2) phpBB3
3) myBB (very similar to the PAID Invision Power Board)
4) phpBB2 (most popular "freebie" but outdated and the older versions were hacked all the time)
5) punBB (great performance but not very popular)

PAID FORUMS
1) vBulletin ($80 yearly license) or ($160 lifetime license with $30 yearly updates)
2) Invision Power Board (IPB)

This WebHostingtalk forum here runs on vBulletin and I like vBulletin. IPB also has many people that like it but to me vBulletin seems classier.

On the front page question, that is a "Portal" / "CMS". The biggest ones
1) Joomla
2) PHP-Nuke
3) Nuke Evolution
4) Xoops
5) EZ Publish
6) mkPortal

There are MANY, MANY CMS's / Portals. I would suggest Joomla if you have alot of time to learn it. Nuke Evolution is fancy and not too hard. mkPortal is the easiest and quickest to setup with your forum.

All are free software except for vBulletin and Invision Power Board. To find them for download, just do a google search and they'll come up right away because they're all very popular.

Ask more questions and I'll try to help.

Thanks for the info. This is useful for me too, as I am thinking of setting up a local forum for the area where I live, where people can discuss local issues, local history, education, nightlife, etc.

I was wondering about a portal too. Why does a portal have to have a CMS? Couldn't it just be a straight web page? Or would this just be more work? (I can code directly in html).

Most of popular forums around the web are vbulleting based. Invision board is also good but it is expensive. I like vanilla forums and phpBB. phpBB isfree of charge but be aware that it is easier for spammers to flood phpBB than vbulletin for example.

I was wondering about going with phpBB. I presume I could just do regular checking and clear the spam out?

I'm not familiar with vanilla forums - one for me to look up, I think. What are the adv's and disadv's of vanilla?

You can do a straight HTML page for your portal, it doesn't have to be a CMS.

However, for ease of use, it's good to go with a CMS (Content Management System). Here's why:
1) Editing text without worrying much about breaking the site format

2) Multiple logins at one time. A CMS (like Joomla) has downloadable "bridges" that can log you into your CMS, your Forum, and your Gallery/Clanbase all at the same time. That way, 1 user login is used system wide. So if a User registers at your Portal, their user accounts are also automatically created for your Forum using the same info. VERY CONVENIENT.

3) Good for noobs and moderators. Let's say you have moderators on your portal. Unless they also know your FTP passwords AND know how to do a bang-up job coding HTML, you can't delegate this task to them. So anytime you have news or announcements for the frontpage, YOU have to go do it. Why not have the little moderators do it? Your CMS hsa built in moderation capabilities.

The list goes on and on...CMS' are great, that's why they're so popular.

Vanilla? I've never used that one...I always thought it meant an "un-modded" forum.

phpBB2 has some mods for spam filtering that work quite well.

Remember, with phpBB2, it is outdated and it lacks alot of features unless you add them in. Say for example, there's no WSYIWIG editor, no attachments. But on the plus side, it's tried and true. If this is brand new, I think you should go phpBB3. Last I checked, I think it's in RC4. The final version is due out any day now.

Oh yeah, I think I was misunderstanding the term vanilla - now I see.

Thanks for explaining why CMS's are so convenient. I may give joomla a go - it's open source, innit?

I will prolly go with phpBB3, and will use a mod to filter out the spam.

Free!

Joomla 1.5 is also about to be released, a big improvemnet over the 1.0.x versions. I think you can give that a try also although it's still in RC stage too. Joomla 1.0.x is a viable alternative but many have already jumped on the 1.5 bandwagon.

phpBB3 doesn't have spam problems...yet. But I am sure they'll keep up with updates.

Joomla has a bit of a learning curve but once you get used to it, it's very good and forever powerful. I think you've made an excellent decisison on both the portal and (free) forum.

I would recommand vbulletin for paid one and mybb/phpbb for free one.

If you are looking for cms, maybe joomla would be good.

Thanks, guys. So Joomla 1.5 and phpBB3 it will most likely be.

What I'll have to think about next is suitable hosting. I'm not expecting this forum to be fantastically well populated or busy, as it will be fairly parochial, so I prolly won't need a great deal of space.

I do have other projects in the pipeline though, so presume I could always expand any package I bought further down the line?

Yes, all hosts are flexible on upgrades, it's the downgrades that will cause them to try to talk you out of it.

For a parochial site that doesn't need to have super reliability or speed, I would suggest a reputable budget host.

Thanks guys something to think about anyway

Fusion is one of the best (written by some of the original pay per forum folks) at "paid" access forums and ease of use.
Easiest admin/permissions/RSS fetch and RSS feeds etc. area there is.

Pricing is reasonable and it has VERY efficient coding for low server loads.

http://www.fusionbb.com is the website but their default theme they use on the site is about the least attractive of their stock themes IMHO. They have numerous themes I think look better but to each his own, and I guess on the "company" site it's normal to use the "default" colors.

I'm not familiar with vanilla forums - one for me to look up, I think. What are the adv's and disadv's of vanilla?
Vanilla? I've never used that one...I always thought it meant an "un-modded" forum.
It's sometimes hard to tell what people mean by a brief comment but I think dawhb was probably referring to Lussumo Vanilla (http://getvanilla.com/). It's relatively new, based on a tiny core with plugins for most functionality and by default has a very different look and feel to other forums. Some regular forum users don't like this but I think it works well for small communities and new users. Worth a look just to see how different a forum can be...