Free Forum Software

Most Internet users are familiar with forums. They are online communities where groups of people come together to do a variety of things. Some forums are large, some are small but all of them utilize a type of forum software to keep them running. While some of the larger forums utilize paid forum software to keep afloat, other medium-sized to small forums run on free forum software.

Free forum software comes in two forms: Up and running or open sourced. Up and running free forum software are run from servers and set up for users to begin using right away. An example of an up and running free forum includes the InvisionFree platform. InvisionFree offers ad-based forums for free via their web site. InvisionFree is a splint of the Invision PowerBoard group, which offers paid forum software with additions, upgrades and other features for larger forums, businesses and groups. While most of these types of forums are ad-based and cannot be fully customized, they do allow smaller forums to function seamlessly. Once you have outgrown to a medium or large forum, however, most free forums will no longer be able to handle the amount of traffic, and you will have to move to something bigger.

Open sourced free forum software comes in a variety of shapes and forum. Two of the most popular are phpBB and vBulletin. You download the forum packages, unzip them in most cases, and then upload them to your own server. From there, you set-up all aspects of the forum and customize them to your uses. Under this route, you must provide the bandwidth and disk space to keep the forums up and running as opposed to the InvisionFree-type model. Even a large forum can run on software this way. Both phpBB and vBulletin are popular alternatives to purchasing paid forum software, because they allow for a deep level of modification within the source code.

There are many different types of free forum software out there, and depending on your needs, you will find one to fit the community you are building. If your community outgrows free software, there are paid forum software bundles you can purchase. These, too, come in various forms and can be customized fully.