Want to start a forum? then have a look at these software

If you are reading this post, it means you already know the value of having a successful online forum and that’s why you’re here but in case you’re yet to know, Internet forum is the best means of building community of people with similar interest on any topic. one thing that make forum owners more successful in the internet world is the ability of the forum to grow on its own.
You can make unlimited income from a forum if well established and properly managed. Below are some of the finest software you can deploy to have your own forum. They are listed in no particular order.

•  SMF (Free) – Simple Machine Forum almost equals vBulletin in many ways. It 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!

•  phpBB (Free) – This 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 customize 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.

•  Vanilla Forum (Free) – Vanilla allows you to create a customized community that rewards positive participation, automatically curates content and lets members drive moderation. Vanilla provides hosted and open source community forum software that powers discussion forums on 664,709 sites. Built for flexibility and integration, [According to the makers] Vanilla is the best, most powerful community solution in the world.

•  IP.Board ($175) – P.Board is the leading solution for creating an engaging discussion forum on the web. supports categories, forums and sub-forums in whatever hierarchy makes sense for your community. Each category and forum has individual permissions and settings, allowing you to precisely determine who can access what, and what they can do with it. There’s also Redirect Forums, which appear in your forum listing as normal, but link to a URL you define – great for directing users to documentation or other important pages.

• PunBB (Free) – PunBB is a fast and lightweight PHP-powered discussion board. It is released under the GNU General Public License. Its primary goals are to be faster, smaller and less graphically intensive as compared to other discussion boards. PunBB has fewer features than many other discussion boards, but is generally faster and outputs smaller, semantically correct XHTML-compliant pages.

•  vBulletin ($249) – vBulletin is no doubt the most popular Forum software on earth used by some of the finest and biggest forums and other websites. It is complete in every aspect and well maintained. The only constraint is probably the cost of purchasing the license.  A new license goes for $249.00 while the upgrade is $209.00. The mobile suite is currently at $399.00 and the upgrade is $359.00

• XenForo ($140) – XenForo was founded and build by group of people who formerly worked at vBulletin. New but quality in every aspect and coming from people who are already familiar with industry standard, you can expect nothing but a robust forum software that adhere to modern web standard including the HTML5. Human-readable URLs, semantic HTML with embedded microdata, and many more SEO features are present in the very core of the system.

• MyBB (Free) – MyBB is a free open source form software that allows you to build a clean community forum in no time. A lot of thought has gone into the MyBB interface to make it easy to use. MyBB uses a standard discussion board structure, so your visitors will feel familiar with the way MyBB works. Your visitors can use the MyBB user control panel to change the way they view discussions. They can also easily start and reply to discussions and markup their posts. The forum administrators and moderators can use MyBB’s inline editing and moderation features to control discussion and keep the forum tidy.

•  BBPress (Free) – Created by the same people who behind WordPress (Automattic) BBPress is one of the simplest and lightest forum software around and integrates smoothly with WordPress. Like WordPress, it is also free and has thousands of in house and volunteer developers working day and night to maintain it, you sure to be in safe hands. However, it too simple to some people liking.

•  YaBB (Free) – This simple forum script (Yet Another Bulletin Board) YaBB software is customizable to fit your needs and design taste. Everything from the look to the operation can be easily changed. It is easy to setup and administer, has built-in security, censor controls, and spam eliminators. Security includes encrypted usernames and passwords, no follow links, banning tools, and auto-blocking/banning tools. This system is the world’s first and most popular open-source Perl forum software! All you need to do to get started is download YaBB from this site for FREE and install it on your existing website! You can control every aspect of your forum

My advise: If you want to go for free open source forum software, go for: PHPBB or SMF If you want to go for paid, choose vBulletin it is the best forum software on the internet but cost some money. Nairaland and some other forums in Nigeria runs on SMF which a free forum software.