What forum software to use?

[BeHarley]

My cousin have a new assignment now to build a community and he has to target linux audience too. Don't know where to start. I am watching and following simple machine forums. Is it a good platform? I want to build a community for free. What other options do I have?

Linux, I can get some examples and samples from this very forum.

[xenopeek]

You can take a look here for comparison of options: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compariso ... m_software. That's for self hosting. You can rent a virtual server for a few bucks per month which will be enough for smaller communities. Or you can run a computer 24/7 in your own home and use noip.com for dynamic DNS. Both assuming you'll be using a domain name of course.

There are websites offering a free forum hosting but I don't know how good or reliable those are. If you're looking for free options you could register a subreddit on Reddit?

We're using phpBB but have looked seriously at SMF (simple machines forum) and MyBB in the past, as well as various others that didn't make the cut for serious consideration for one reason or another. Ultimately we stuck with phpBB but SMF is a good choice as well. I don't think there are bad choices with the actively developed projects. Most offer a demo forum you can try out and it's easy to install a bunch at home (in virtual machine if you want) to play around with them before committing to one or another.

[kc1di]

Here's a page though it's for 2016 so some of the software may no longer be available.
But I've used Phorum in the past with good results although there may be easier ones on there.
https://savedelete.com/software/best-fo ... aid/14592/
Good Luck in your search.
I'm sure others with more experience than I will chime in.

[vansloneker]

phpBB is sort of a standard and not very hard to install and maintain.