The title kind of says it. What is your favorite forum software? It can be as a writer, a forum admin, or both. There are a number out there now: XenForo, phpBB, vBulletin, Discourse, MyBB, Simple Machines Forum (SMF), Flarum, Vanilla Forums, Invision Community.

What say you; which do you love? Or loathe?

When it comes to premium software, I would have to go with Xenforo. I started using Xenforo not too long after it was released and have never gone back to any others.

For free open-source software, that would be MyBB, and I am super sad that they do not update it as much as they used to.

To answer my own question, hands down, Xenforo. It is becoming something of a standard, with good reason. The very large, very active board I moderate on has said, with a number of invaluable modifications. Beyond that, I have a lot of flytime (on both sides of the board) with vBulletin and SMF.

If I was to start my own community circa 2026, I'd go with Xenforo, unless there was an overwhelming reason not to.

Sadly, many of the free options really haven't caught up, but they have some uses in niche applications.

Will you be placing orders for posts/threads here?

On Jun 30, 2026, iamawriter said:

Will you be placing orders for posts/threads here?

Personally, no. I don't planning on launching any new boards in the near future. I am a volunteer moderator on a very active board and that's about the extent I would wish to do on that side of the equation.

All that said, it will be great when writers can start working here. I look forward to developments in the coming months. :)

XenForo is pretty much my favorite paid software. SMF is my favorite free software.

I got a forum on proboards. It's was quite easy to setup. No hustle. It's simple but effective. Good enough for me.

So I’ve used vBulletin and MyBB in the past: I’m talking several years with MyBB. But these days my favorite platform is leaning heavily towards Flarum because they’re so quick and modern looking. The community is pretty actively sharing resources, whereas the development for MyBB seems to have ceased. The most important part of a forum software is the community that supports it with new extensions and general support.

From a developer and user perspective, I really appreciate XenForo and Discourse, plus modern lightweight platforms like ForumSpark that Postloop is running on right now. Discourse is fantastic for open-source tech communities because its markdown editor, code syntax highlighting, and keyboard shortcuts feel natural when sharing code snippets.

At the same time, XenForo keeps that classic, cozy categorized forum layout that long-time community members love without feeling dated on mobile screens.