Choice of 3 forum platforms

[jawn_tech]

A non-profit org is putting up a forum for its 2,000 members. Would anyone care to share their experience with any of the following three forum platforms? I know there's plenty others out there, better ones, worse ones. For reasons beyond what I can go into, these three are being considered.

phpBB
Simple Machines Forum
Vanilla ForumPro's? Con's?

Things being considered would personal preferences to flexibility, features, support, themes / skins, SEO friendliness, or anything else you'd like to add.

Thanks!
:cool:

[kgun]

I have only experience with older varsions of phpBB. I think
The code is good enough. Version 3.0 and above should be even better. There are a lot of modifications. There is a large online community supporting the software. It is regularily updated to meet newer requirements.
This http://starfoxtj.phpbbhelp.org//phpBB/toolkit/ exellent tool is one reason why you should choose phpBB. One modification. I don't know how compatible it is with newer versions, but since it is relatively easy to understand the code, it should be.

[Vaijero_Maya]

I installed and tried in the past:

1. PhpBB Forum
2. Simple Machines Forum
3. Yabb Forum

I liked Yabb and simple machines the most (personal choice). Anyway I prefer and use eBlah. Why?, well, it has RSS functions, self archive, ban tools, its free, it support several themes and languages and self backup, it also has pms and news functions. It includes a way to insert the last posts in any page of your site vía JS.

I know its arguable, but I like it because it doesn't require MYSQL. This makes it easier to move from server to server and deal personally with its internal data exchanging with other apps. I can just zip the directory and expand it elsewhere with no hassle, except from 2 or 3 settings.

I tried the other options but I didn't enjoy moving the forums from server to server.

[ciidoctor]

stick to the most popular as you easily find hacks ,tutorials and support i mean phpbb of course.