How Do The Various Web-Forum Engines Compare?

psyklohps asks: "I work at a local newspaper in Dover, DE. My boss is trying to setup a forum based site that will cover local news and get responses form the community. Unfortunately bosses are not very smart, and he is trying to develop the site from scratch. So I feel that I should tell him about the forum-based-code engines that are free. Of course my first choice would be Slashcode, but after looking on Google I found alot of different engines. PHPNuke, Zope, Squish.dot, and others that I have forgotten are available. What are the pros and cons for each of them?"

phpweblog

[jdevons]

If you don't need authentication my choice would be phpweblog [phpweblog.org].

PHPSlash

[costas]

Warning: this is a plug; I am a member of the PHPSlash core team. Check out PHPSlash [phpslash.org]. The current release doesn't do users or moderation, but it *does* have templates, an extensible class library (in OOP PHP), session management and some features that I believe are unique, like the ability to file stories in more than one sections or topics. PHPSlash used to be a port of Slashcode, but it's now a 100% clean-room implementation, written from the ground up for PHP.

Fojar Communication System

[198348726583297634]

hi. i'm plugging my php-based forum system, too. unfortunately, my server's down due to ISP wackiness right now, but when it comes back up, check out the Fojar Communication System [fojar.com]. it's incredibly quick to set up, comes with _tonnes_ of examples, is pretty flexible in how you arrange comments (it'd be an ideal replacement for things like zdnet's tlakback..), and it's got a nifty admin tool.

Phorum

[nabucco]

Slashdot had a discussion [slashdot.org] about this a little over a year ago, much of it is still relevant.

I needed something, preferably PERL or PHP based with a MySQL backend for a UNIX admin forum [vartmp.com] I'm starting...

I checked out Smallpig...to me code is ideally like GNU code - configure, make, make install is all that should be needed on normal, major systems. Smallpig is far from this. I didn't really like the way it was coded, although a lot of the features are nice.

I like Slashcode, especially for the karma system, but it again seemed a bit much for what I wanted

I went with Phorum - I'd been happy with PHP since my exposure to it. It's simple, yet does the job. It's small enough that I can expand in the direction I want, yet big enough that it does most of what I want, I don't have to start from scratch.

Slashcode is a PAIN the first time...

[StandardDeviant]

A friend of mine and I have set up ~5 slashcode[1] sites now (geekaustin.org [geekaustin.org] is an example; they're all hosted off the same box). The first one you do is a royal with cheese pain in the ass. The engine is very flexible, but it'll probably take you a good month or two to get it up and become familiar with the inner workings.

So for a quick fix, my .02 USD is to avoid Slashcode and go with something simpler.

Just to add another name to the pot, Glasscode (java servlet based) was released yesterday or the day before. I'd provide a link here but if you can't look for the story link that's still more than likely on the front page yer just being laaaa-zeee. ;-)

Good luck!

[1] the mod_perl/shtml/MySQL monstrosity that powers this website among (many) others. it works but on the inside it ain't pretty...

--
Fuck Censorship.

Interviews.

[Aunt Mable]

Buster bunny sez: "PHPNuke is wery wery wery sloow. Don't use PHPNuke unless you also use Marajuana; counteracting the wery wery wery slooowness of PHPNuke. The template system is arse too."

Aunt Mable sez: "If you dont' have much processor power go for something in Perl that writes static files when required. Me? I would write my own flat weblog in PHP/MySQL. Linear aside from stories."

She continues: "...the most important bit is your HTML which when generated usually looks like arse. Don't make yours bloated and look like arse. Don't"

-- Eat your greens or I'll hit you!

Glasscode

[Nishi-no-wan]

Standard Deviant-san wrote:

Just to add another name to the pot, Glasscode (java servlet based) was released yesterday or the day before. I'd provide a link here but if you can't look for the story link that's still more than likely on the front page yer just being laaaa-zeee. ;-)

The URL is:

http://glasscode.half-empty.org/gcservlet/LoadPage [half-empty.org] .

I haven't tried it out yet, but plan to before the weekend is out. Wife and kids catching the flu have postponed my tests so far this weekend. Some things take priority.

Re:Slashcode is a PAIN the first time...

[j-pimp]

Ok just realize that glasscode's license only allows it for non commercial use. I can't find a link to the license but I read the FAQ a few days ago unfortunatly from another computer that I can't access the history off of. Its an interesting moderation system, I just wonder how well it could stand up to THe slashdot crowd

What's your boxes like?

[DerekLyons]

The next question to ask, is what is your box like? Most of the webforum software out there seems to require diddling with Apache (or whatever you use for a web server). Installation of almost all of them is a job for the brave and reasonably experienced.

http://phpreactor.org/

[gempabumi]

everything you need. php(Reactor) [phpreactor.org].