Software used for this forum?

WebDeveloper

Hi All, 1st time poster here so I hope someone can answer my question.

I am hoping to release a website which will predominantly be a forum where users will discuss a certain subject (Nothing to do with moneysavingexpert I hasten to add ).

I know this is a long shot but I'm just wondering what software is used to create this forum? Anyone have any idea?

Kind Regards
WD

fermi

At the bottom of the page.

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WebDeveloper

fermi wrote: »

At the bottom of the page.

Rapid response. Thank you very much Fermi, much appreciated.

SailorSam

I don't know if this is any good, a few reviews are ok.
It's a short free online course about building your own forum.
You may find something there to help you.

https://www.udemy.com/build-an-online-forum-in-less-than-1-hour/?aff_code=E0sacV1QQ3oLQRtwWk9EfBxAG2FfUk99B0kYc0w%3D

WebDeveloper

Thanks SailorSam, I'll give it a look now. vBulletin looks fairly impressive so it will be interesting to see how the two compare.

I've been given phpbb as another alternative so I've got plenty of reading to do tonight

GrumpyPL

WebDeveloper wrote: »

Thanks SailorSam, I'll give it a look now. vBulletin looks fairly impressive so it will be interesting to see how the two compare.

I've been given phpbb as another alternative so I've got plenty of reading to do tonight

I would add that MSE is clearly using a very heavily customized version of vBulletin, so much so that a lot of the things you see on MSE wouldn't be possible without a lot of core code edit from your side, which you may or may not have the knowledge to do.

xenForo is a good alternative if you want to pay for your forum software, but the best free alternative would likely be MyBB, which can rival any forum software in reality and is very easy to use from an administration point of view.

Best of luck with your new site.

Former_MSE_Andrea

Hi

Yes, just to reiterate what GrumpyPL said, we have a lot of custom hacks on our Vbulletin so it's best not to assume everything you see will be on a version you use.

Hope that helps

Andrea

Former_MSE_Andrea

PS to see a version of Xenforo being used have a look at AVforums. They switched to it from Vbulletin in 2013 (if my memory serves me right) and they're pretty happy with it.

fermi

Could be wrong, but I don't think vB are even issuing licences to new customers for vBulletin 3.x?

They are now up to version 5 which in itself is significantly different from v3 which this board is based upon, even if you ignore the fact that it's heavily customised here.

xenforo also do a demo board that you can test all the features on for yourself --> https://xenforo.com/demo/

WebDeveloper

Thanks All, your input is very much appreciated.

Would I be right in thinking that if I were to invest in either of vBulletin or xenForo then they would host the site as part of their fee? Or is their fee purely for the software? I would then have to source a company to host my forum?